Category Archives: offering to Isis

Happy Equinox!

Hello, Isiacs! I’m off celebrating the equinox today. Yes, it’s Portland and it’s overcast and chilly. But the daffodils are blooming and all the little green shoots are coming up.

So, no post today, but I’ll leave you with some images of Our Lady that I had the privilege to see at the Egyptian Museum.

Isis in a somewhat unusual squatting postion
A classic mourning Isis
An Isis aegis; these busts of the Deities were sometimes used to decorate the sacred boats in which They were carried among the people during festivals
An Isis-Aphrodite with Her bare vulva and show-girl hat
Not Isis, but Her son Horus; this is a cippi of Horus used for healing. You pour water over the image and magical words. It gathers in the basin below…and you drink that as your cure.

Many blessings to you and yours!

Under Her Wings, Isidora

Is Isis Calling Me?

One of the questions I regularly receive from folks who email me is, “how can I tell if Isis is calling me?” It’s a very good question, if a somewhat difficult one to answer.

Sometimes, people have had dreams with what they think could be Isiac imagery. Sometimes they’ve had a vision or some other experience during a ritual. Sometimes it’s a feeling, sometimes a wish or a hope.

To try to unravel this, the first thing we need to figure out is what we mean by “calling?” In other words, if She were calling us, what would that mean? What kind of obligation, if any, comes with that calling? Because so many of us have Christianity in our personal backgrounds as well as Christianity being so prominent in our societies, we might automatically associate “a calling” with a vocation for the ministry or priesthood. It’s certainly possible. But there are other possibilities, too.

What calling means to us can also depend on where we are in our spiritual journey, as well as what we’ve been studying or reading or thinking.

For instance, let’s say you’re very interested in ancient Egypt, you’ve been reading about it, and you’re in a spiritual circle of some kind that regularly invokes Deities. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. She might, indeed. She could also be one of any number of Egyptian Goddesses, which you would know about from your reading. What you intuit from your own dream will be very helpful here. If you think She’s Isis, you can follow that thread. We’ll talk about that shortly.

For another instance, let’s say you’ve never had any particular connection with ancient Egypt and you’re not on any specific spiritual path. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. This may be just a dream. But if you find it exceptionally powerful, keep looking. A dream like that might be pointing out that your soul is yearning for some positive Mother or Divine Feminine energy in your life. That knowledge, in and of itself, is very valuable information. On the other hand, such a dream could be the impetus to set you on a spiritual journey as you seek to learn more.

And for a third instance, let’s say you have that same dream. But you don’t feel that you’re ready—or that you even want to—do anything about it. You absolutely don’t have to. If it’s an important knock on your spiritual door, She’ll knock again. And it’s okay to say no. You won’t hurt Her feelings and there are no negative consequences.

So. Dreams are one way to hear Isis if She’s calling you. But if you, like me, are a crappy dreamer and neither remember them nor write them down, there are other ways to hear Her. There are usually signs. Signs can be tricky. In most cases, a sign is something unusual that catches your attention and relates to the particular Deity involved, in our case, Isis. Because She is a Bird Goddess, it might be wings and feathers. You may hear the sound of wings at an odd time. Or a bird swoops down immediately in your line of sight, startling you. Or a feather drops from the sky. Her symbols—like the Knot of Isis or a throne—might show up unexpectedly. Perhaps you overhear Her name in a passing conversation between strangers. This will happen, not just once, but many times. Be patient. Wait. And look and listen for the signs.

Now, if you’re actively wanting Her to be calling you, signs and synchronicities can ramp up. Does a breeze rustle the leaves of a tree as you pass, thinking of Her? It is Her breath. Have you found a piece of jewelry engraved with Her image? She confirms your Path. Did that hawk circle above you as you drive your car down a country road with Her name on your lips? She is guiding you. 

Is it foolish to see these signs everywhere? Is it “just my imagination?” In some cases, sure, there will be a kind of confirmation bias. But that doesn’t matter; She’s on your mind. You’re thinking of Her. It has begun.

Sometimes, there are other ways to tell. You might have an intuition of Her presence about you. Or something weird might happen. I’ve had incense burn and disappear all by itself, strangers have given me unexpected Isis gifts, very loud disembodied voices have spoken my name. What your weird thing might be, I can’t say.

Now. There’s also an important secret about all this that I’d like to share with you. Two, really. The first is that if you want to connect with Isis, you don’t have to wait for Her to call you. You can call Her, too. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Ask Her to come into your life. If you like ritual, use the Opening of the Ways here.

The second is that being called by Isis doesn’t necessarily mean you are being called to a lifelong relationship with Her. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being called to serve as Her priestess or priest. It might mean you’re being called to learn more about Her—right now and perhaps only for a while. Perhaps you’re being called to relationship. And like any relationship, that means investing time. Spend time with Her, in meditation and prayer. Read about Her in anything and everything you can get your hands on. Get to know Her. See how She feels to you. Do you like Her energy? Does it fit with yours? That’s what I mean by following the thread…and just see where it leads you.

And if you find, after time, that this is not the relationship for you, that’s perfectly okay. You will have learned. You will have grown and your spiritual world will have been expanded.

But if you find that, like me, you are a lifetime (or at least longterm) devotee of Isis, then I know you will discover for yourself Her deep love, wisdom, power, and magic.

The Disturbing Story of Isis & Re

Ra by Jeszika Le Vye. Buy a copy here.

This is an important Isis myth. It almost always gets overshadowed by the main Isis and Osiris myth, the murder of Osiris and Isis’ search for Him. But this is the Isis myth that is, for many, the most unsettling when we are first learning our Isis lore; and that is the tale of how Isis tricked the Sun God Re into revealing His most secret name and thereby gained additional power for Herself and for Her son, Horus. Know that story? If not, you can read a translation here.

On the basis of this tale, some have decided that Isis is an evil magician. I have even seen the story used as an argument to show how naturally underhanded all women are! And, on the face of it, the tale is troubling. Isis decides to gain power. She deliberately poisons Re, then cures Him only after He reveals to Her His most secret, hidden, and powerful name. Although Isis’ Divine knowledge is already equal to Re’s, knowing His name gives Her even more power. What’s more, She will be able to share Re’s name with Horus, once He is oath-bound to keep it secret, and Horus will receive the sun and moon as His Two Eyes.

So what are we to make of this? Is Isis just another tricky female? Perhaps we should consider Her as one of the Trickster Deities. She’s a Divine Magician, after all, and magicians are always tricky. Or maybe Isis was forced to resort to magical artifice to break through a Divine glass ceiling. Think of royal women in the Egyptian court. Because they did not have outright power equal to men’s, they would have used tricks, subterfuge, perhaps even poison, as a path to power. We must remember that it is always human beings who tell these stories, thus all stories come through a human filter.

As you might guess, none of these explanations satisfy me. I do have one that does, but it will take me a little while to get to my point, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

Background Info

There are several things you should know about this story. First, the version of the tale that has come down to us is from a papyrus known as the Turin Papyrus (along with a few other sources). It has been dated to Egypt’s 20th dynasty, about 1186-1169 BCE. No doubt, the story itself is much, much older, but the version we have comes from the later time. Second, the story is part of a healing formula to cure snakebite. Egyptian medicine almost always had a magical prescription as well as whatever herbal or surgical therapy was given. Such prescriptions often included a myth that related to the problem, followed by a statement that just as so-and-so was cured in the myth, so shall the sufferer be cured. In this case, just as Re was cured by Isis, so shall the snakebite sufferer be cured. Instruction is given at the end of the formula to recite the story over images of the main characters in the tale.

Elements of the Myththe old king

The papyrus tells us that Re was so old that He drooled. In a time when the pharaoh was considered a God, and therefore should be the epitome of physical, mental and spiritual perfection, it would hardly be acceptable to have a ruler so old He drooled. Myths such as the death of the Holly King in Celtic countries, ritual combat to the death between the outgoing priest of Diana at the grove of Nemi and an incoming hopeful, and Arthurian legends of the Wounded King of the Wasteland—all point to the archetypal nature of this theme.

Lady of Renewal

Elements of the Myththe Goddess of Renewal

If you know anything about Isis, you know that one of Her key powers is the ability to renew and resurrect. The Turin papyrus tells us that Isis came to Re with Her magic and that Her “speech was as the breath of life.” When the Star of Isis, Sirius, rose in summer, it signaled the beginning of the New Year and the renewal of all things. Her magic brought Osiris back to life enough to conceive Horus and then gave Him a new existence as Lord of the Dead. As some of you may know, I believe Isis is the ancient Bird of Prey Goddess. Thus She is the Lady of Death and Regeneration, an identity that She has never lost, even to this day. Since the failing Re does not willingly give up His power, Isis must create the conditions that force the old ruler to the point of renewal.

Elements of the Myththe saliva of the God


In Egypt, magic might be worked by means of bodily fluids. Saliva, semen, blood, sweat, milk, and other such fluids were a means of creation. If it was the blood, sweat, and tears of the Deities, it was even more creative and powerful. Since Re drooled, rather than purposefully spitting (for example, when Atum creatively spit to give birth to the Goddess Tefnut), He was wasting His power.

Elements of the Myththe holy serpent

Yet, the Goddess does not let it go to waste. Instead, She mixes Re’s drool with earth, the place of renewal from which new life grows, to create a holy cobra (or “noble snake” as in the linked translation). The cobra is a mixture of life—in that it is made partly of earth and will ultimately cause Re to be healed—and death—in that it is made from the wasted generative power of Re and is a symbol of His unfitness for His throne. And of course, the serpent is an almost universal symbol of renewal due to the snake’s ability to shed its skin and emerge new from the experience.

In the form of the holy cobra, Re’s own weakness strikes Him and brings Him more pain than He has ever before experienced. He quakes with cold and burns with fire.

Re

Elements of the Mythname magic

In Egyptian magical theory, to know someone or something’s name is to be able to access its essence at the time of Creation, when all heka was at its more pure and potent. In this story, Re is considered the most powerful Deity in the universe (the tale also contains a litany of Re’s great powers). Knowing His secret name confers ultimate power; including the power to heal. As Isis tells Re, “the person who hath declared his name shall live.”

If this story is very ancient, it may be that its original form, in which Isis renews Re simply because that’s what the Goddess does, was lost. Perhaps later scribes tried to explain the Mystery to themselves and their audiences by framing it as a trick to gain power. Thus what may seem like simple blackmail is actually much more profound. Re is being forced to reveal a most secret and inner part of Himself to the Goddess. To be healed, He must make Himself vulnerable to the Lady of Renewal. He must accept both Her help and Her very real power.

Isis heals the ailing Re

Once Re gives Himself over to Isis, He is healed, renewed in strength and power. He learns that He must give up in order to gain. He learns to trust the Goddess Whom He has been forced to trust. And the Goddess proves Herself worthy. In no successive myth do we ever find any evidence that Isis abuses the ultimate power She has gained.

But Wait, There’s More

In the very same papyrus in which this story is found, there is a parallel story involving Horus and Set. It, too, is a magical snakebite cure. Here’s that story:

Horus and Set were voyaging together on Horus’ golden barque. Suddenly, Set cried out, “Come to me Horus, I have been bitten!”

And Horus turned to Set and said, “Tell Me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”

Set replied, “I am Yesterday, I am Today, I am Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come.”

But Horus said, “No, Thou art not Yesterday, Today, or Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come. Tell me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”

So Set said, “I am a Quiver of Arrows, I am a Cauldron of Disturbance.”

“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated what He had said before.

“I am a Man of a Thousand Cubits, Whose Reputation is Not Known.”

“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated again what He had said.

“I am a Threshing Floor; I am a Jug of Milk, Milked from the Breast of Bastet.

“No, Thou art not,” said Horus again.

Finally, Set replied with His True Name, “I am a Man of a Million Cubits Whose Name is Evil Day. As for the Day of Giving Birth or of Conceiving, There is No Giving Birth and Trees Bear No Fruit.”

The formula concludes with the promise that the sufferer will be made as sound as Horus was by Isis, so even though in this story Horus is one Who is pushing Set to reveal His true name, the cure is attributed to Isis.

images
Horus and Set as sphinxes flanking a Cow Goddess

What the Trickster Teaches

It seems clear to me that a key to both of these myths is vulnerability to the Divine that precedes healing. We must reveal our innermost selves, symbolized by our true name, to Goddess, to God. We must do so even if, like Set, it is a name with which we are not entirely comfortable. We must give ourselves over to the Divine, as we are, right now, with no masks. Only in this state of radical openness can we receive the renewing gifts that Divinity has for us. Like Re and like Set, we must—at least eventually—be willing to acknowledge and trust the Divine in order to bring Its power into our lives. This vulnerability and revelation of truth can be painful, like poison; and yet the truth always frees us.

Like Re especially, we must acknowledge the power of Goddess and make ourselves open to Her. If we don’t, She will find a way—perhaps a rather difficult way—to bring that lack to our attention. But when we do reveal ourselves to Her, we can know Her and be known by Her. We can enter into mystical communion with Her as we move through the natural cycle of death and renewal that is guided by Her hand.

Isis giving life to a queen

Nuet, the Secret One

The Milky Way arching through the night sky; Nuet, the Secret One

While I have no declared priestesshood for Nuet, She draws me. A lot. In fact, almost anytime I do spiritual work with Her, I am overawed by Her Eternity, Her Depth, Her Beauty, and I want to lose myself in Her.

Nuet is the mother of Isis. And She is also the One Who Bears All the Gods and Goddesses, and so She is called the Mistress of All. She is the Splendid and Mighty One in the House of Her Creation. She is the Great One in Heaven and the “indestructible stars” (that is, the circumpolar stars that are always visible) are said to be in Her.

The Sky Goddess Nuet, full of stars, swallowing the Sun (my image, too, whoohoo!)

She embraces the deceased “in Her name of Sarcophagus” and “in Her name of Tomb.” She is the Mistress of the Duat (the Otherworld). She is the Glowing One (as the Milky Way) and in Her we are joined to our stars, Becoming divine. She is the one Who gives birth to us and Who welcomes us back into Her starry body at our deaths. She is Heaven and She is the Otherworld. She is the one Who is “Amid the Iset Temple in Denderah” for She is over Her daughter Isis and Her daughter is both in and of Her.

A most beautiful Nuet

As Nuet gives birth every day, She is the quintessential Mother Goddess. She births the Sun God Re each day and receives him back into Her body, by swallowing Him, each night. She also gives birth to Him yearly at the winter solstice. A cycle within a cycle within the Mother.

The decan stars, by which the ancient Egyptians kept time throughout the night, rise and set within Her heavenly body and so She is also a keeper and regulator of time. In one instance of what Egyptologists refer to as a “shadow clock,” the Hours of the Night are counted off in relation to where the sun is on/in Nuet’s body: First Hour, “hand,” Second Hour, “lip.” Third Hour, “tooth,” Fourth Hour, “throat,” and so on.

Nuet on the interior of a coffin, facing the deceased

Most ancient Egyptian painted representations of Deities show Them in profile. Yet there are a few Who come to us face-forward. The Great Goddess Hathor is famously depicted that way, as is Bes, the God Who is a protector of households, children, and mothers. Interestingly, we also find Nuet shown in this way. Like Hathor, She is a Mother Goddess and like Bes, She is a mighty protectress.

We often find Her on the inside of a coffin, stretched out over the deceased person like the sky, positioned face-to-face with them. This face-forward, face-to-face position is particularly intimate, particularly appropriate for the close relationship with a mother…or a Mother Goddess. Yet facing forward is also a protective stance. We see some of these face-forward Deities holding dangerous beasties (scorpions, snakes, crocodiles) harmlessly in Their hands, demonstrating how They can protect us from real as well as metaphorical beasties. Isis’ son, Horus the Child or Harpokrates, is often shown in this way on what are known as Cippi of Horus.

Nuet has another interesting epithet that is found in the Otherworld books known as The Book of Caverns and the Book of the Earth. Just like the more-famous Book of the Dead, these are magical texts to assist the dead in the Otherworld.

The Secret One with serpents, crocodiles, sun disk, and ram in Her hands facing Geb/Re/Osiris

In these books, there is an important Goddess known as the Secret One, the Shetait. Egyptologists generally believe that this is an epithet of Nuet. As the Secret One, Nuet can be seen, not face-forward, but standing between serpents and crocodiles that She has tamed on behalf of the Sun God (and thus the deceased). Her power over them is in the form of heat or fire. They “stay in their place due to the fire, the heat which is in this Goddess,” says the Book of the Earth. The Book of Caverns says that the Goddess “is secret of form, being in their darkness as a flame to which the gods cannot ascend.” She is thus a fiery Light in the Darkness, a flame that protects and illuminates.

And now, back from Egypt, I’m excited to have my very own photos of the illustration above. You should have heard me squeal when I recognized it in the tomb! Here it is:

The Secret One and Geb
A closer image of Himself
A closer image of Herself

The Secret One holds in Her hands a sun disk and, in this case, a ram-headed God, or sometimes a ba-bird. Either represents the Sun God, Who is in the process of being regenerated and reborn. Thus, the Secret One holds this process in Her hands.

The Book of Caverns tells us that the Secret One’s head is in the upper Duat while Her feet are in the lower Duat. The Sun God travels upon Her arms, but at the same time is hidden by Her from the Gods, the akhu (the transfigured, light-filled, potent spirits), and the dead. The process of rebirth is delicate and must be hidden until the proper time. In the Book of the Earth, it is said that “the Double Ba, He travels Her body.” The Double Ba is the conjunction of Re and Osiris—something that must also happen in the Duat in order for the sun to be reborn.

In Her Name of Sarcophagus, Nuet spreads Herself out over the deceased and then She is called Shet Pet. Shet Pet is a common epithet of Nuet’s and means “Coverer of the Sky.” With a little bit of the word play for which the ancient Egyptians were so well known, this epithet can also be interpreted as the Secrecy of the Sky (Sheta Pet) reinforcing Nuet’s identification as the Secret One.

The sun disk about to enter the Secret Place and the Secret One

With Her doubled snakes and containing the Double Ba, Nuet can also split Herself in two and become manifest as Her two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Just as Nuet unites the east and west with the arch or Her body across the sky, so Her daughters form a unity as They position Themselves to the right and left of Osiris or They are to be found framing either side of one of the illustrated scenes in the Otherworld books.

The Secret One is, for me, a particularly potent epithet of the Goddess. It tastes of Her Mystery, the great Mystery of Life and Death and Rebirth. It speaks of Her Eternity. It breaths forth Her Depth and Her Power.

Visiting an Isis Temple at Giza

Nice job on the logo, Egyptian tourist board

If you missed getting an Isiopolis post during the last couple of weeks, I have a very good excuse.

I was in Egypt. Finally.

And yes, it was amazing. On multiple levels.

Those of you who have already visited Our Lady’s homeland know. Those of you who haven’t yet, I hope you’ll be able to make the journey someday.

Imagine driving down a major road in your city and seeing this

Now, if you’ve been reading along with this blog, you might know that I’ve never been overly interested in the kings and queens of ancient Egypt. For me, it’s always been about the Deities. And one in particular.

Given that, I’ve never been super-fascinated with the pyramids—other than by the sheer fact of their ancient eminence. But if one goes to Egypt, one must, of course, visit the very impressive pyramids.

But I hoped to make this pyramid trek special because of something I learned about years ago and now would have the opportunity to see for myself.

The map we sent to our guide to show him where we had to go

You see, what I’d learned was that there are the remains of a small Isis temple behind one of the queen’s pyramids, behind the Great Pyramid.

The temple is at the pyramid of Henutsen, who was probably the second or third wife of Khufu, and who lived during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom.

The famous Inventory Stele

There is some confusion over whether Henutsen was a wife or daughter of kings due to an important artifact found in the Giza plateau known as the Inventory Stele. The Stele calls her “king’s daughter” (some Egyptologists think she might have been a daughter of Sneferu). But other than the Stele, the only title we have a record of for her is “king’s wife.” Either way, Henutsen was royalty, bore at least two princes, and got her own smaller pyramid. For our trip, we arranged a private tour in order to be able to include the Isis temple (and forego the camel ride).

Yet, before we talk further, I’d like to quote the Inventory Stele for you, so you can see what is so interesting about it. The Stele has caused a lot of excitement, especially among those who believe that the Sphinx and Pyramids are older than the fourth dynasty period to which Egyptologists usually attribute their construction.

Here’s what it says (my capitalization of Divine pronouns):

Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He made for his mother Isis, the Divine Mother, Mistress of the Western Mountain [i.e. the necropolis], a decree made on a stele, he gave to Her a divine offering, and he built Her a temple of stone, renewing what he had found, namely the Gods in Her place.

Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He found the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, by the side of the cavity of the Sphinx, on the northwest side of the House of Osiris, Lord of Rostau, and he built his pyramid beside the temple of this Goddess, and he built a pyramid for the king’s daughter, Henutsen, beside this temple. The place of Hwran-Hor-em-akhet [that is, the Sphinx] is on the south of the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, and on the north of Osiris, Lord of Rostau. The plans of the Image of Hor-em-akhet were brought in order to bring to revision the sayings of the disposition of the Image of the Very Redoubtable. He restored the statue all covered in painting, of the Guardian of the Atmosphere, who guides the winds with his gaze.

He made to quarry the hind part of the nemes headdress, which was lacking, from gilded stone, and which had a length of about 7 ells [3.7 meters]. He came to make a tour, in order to see the thunderbolt, which stands in the Place of the Sycamore, so named because of a great sycamore, whose branches were struck when the Lord of Heaven descended upon the place of Hor-em-akhet, and also this Image, retracing the erasure according to the above-mentioned disposition, which is written {…} of all the animals killed at Rostau. It is a table for the vases full of these animals which, except for the thighs, were eaten near these seven gods, demanding {…} (The God gave) the thought in his heart, of putting a written decree on the side of this Sphinx, in an hour of the night. [That is, the pharaoh had a dream from the Sphinx that he should do this.] The figure of this God, being cut in stone, is solid, and will exist to eternity, having always its face regarding the Orient.

Translation from The Sphinx: Its History in Light of Recent Excavations, Selim Hassan (1949). Hassan takes it from French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero’s original translation.

The rest of the stele is taken up with a list of the sacred images of the Deities that Khufu restored within the Temple of Isis. The largest part of the stele is an inventory of these images, which is why it is known as the Inventory Stele.

Pretty cool, huh?

Part of the Temple of Isis at Giza; I sat here for a while

What excited me, of course, were the Isis references and the (new-to-me) title “Mistress of the Pyramid.” What excites most of those who get excited about this stele is that it—supposed to have been carved by Khufu’s fourth-dynasty sculptors on the king’s orders—tells us that the Sphinx was already there by that time! Not only that, but apparently the Temple of Isis was there even before Khufu built his Great Pyramid. So wow, right?

The Giza big three
The Giza big three

Alas, most Egyptologists agree that the Stele is an archaized work, probably created sometime between the 25th and 26th dynasties, during a period when Nubian kings were trying to revitalize Egypt by harking back to its Old Kingdom glory days. The style of art and writing point most clearly to the 26th dynasty. Key to the evidence is that we have no reference to “Hwran” and “Hor-em-akhet” as names for the Sphinx until the 18th dynasty.

As for the Temple of Isis, it was probably originally a funerary chapel associated with the pyramid of Henutsen, Khufu’s wife, or as the Inventory Stele says, “king’s daughter.” The temple had been “found” by the pharaoh Pasebekhanu in the 21st dynasty and either converted into a small Temple of Isis at that time or, because the pharaoh either had or believed he had found the remains of an earlier Isis temple, had it refurbished as one. There, Isis was worshiped as Lady of the Pyramid until the Roman period. We even have evidence that Her cult had its own priesthood.

Stele C from the Sphinx temple at Giza

Prior to the Inventory Stele, we find Isis on a Giza stele of Prince Amenomopet, a prince of the 18th dynasty. This is on the so-called Stele C found in the Sphinx Temple and which shows the Sphinx and Isis, wearing the Horns and Disk Crown and within a shrine, receiving offerings from the prince. The image is captioned, “Isis, the Great, the Divine Mother, Queen of the Gods, One in Heaven, Who Has No Equal, the Elder [daughter of] Atum.” Dating on the stele is controversial (so what else is new in Egyptology?), but if the 18th dynasty dating is accurate, then Isis and the Sphinx are being worshiped together at Giza by at least that time.

After this period, we have a number of other Giza inscriptions that include Isis. Some that list Her with other Deities, notably Osiris and Horus, some that indicate that She was being worshiped alone. So it would seem that there was an active cult of Isis at Giza from at least the 18th dynasty. There is also evidence of private devotion at the Temple of Isis; a number of votive plaques were found there as well. (By the way, this info has been gathered together by Christiane M. Zivie-Coche in her book Giza Au Premier Millenaire Autour du Temple D’Isis, Dames des Pyramides.)

We also have several fragments of columns, probably from the Ramessid era, but which were reused in the Third Intermediate Period by Pharaoh Amenemope, on which the king offers wine to Osiris and Isis, Who is identified specifically as Lady of the Pyramids. Because the column was reused, we can’t be sure whether that epithet goes back to the Ramessid period or is from the 21st dynasty. Either way, we have another attestation that one of the Goddess’ epithets is Mistress or Lady of the Pyramid (or Pyramids). This likely refers to Her function of protecting the pyramids and the Osiris-kings in them, and surely to Her power to safeguard their rebirths as well.

Interestingly, a graffito on Henutsen’s pyramid from (probably) Egypt’s late period says that the pyramid is the burial place of Isis. Oriented to the south, it faced the symbolic burial place of Osiris, Lord of Rostau.

Another view of the Temple of Isis
Another view of the Giza Temple of Isis with Henutsen’s pyramid in the background

I’m looking at another article about all this that leans toward taking the Inventory Stele more seriously as fact than previously thought. If there’s anything of interest there, I’ll let you know. But I think this is enough for now.

I am privileged to have been able to sit at Her Giza temple. There’s not much left, either in temple structure or (unfortunately) residual magical buzz. But that’s okay. For I’ll use what I experienced in Giza in my meditations in Her shrine here. I’ll add Her epithet of Mistress of the Pyramid to Her names honored here. In time, Her pyramidal Mysteries will unfurl once more.

Goddess Isis Goes Underground

A carving of Isis from the Aquisgrana Cathedral in Germany
An illustration of an ivory carving depicting the Egyptian city of Alexandria, personified as Isis; originally from Egypt, but now in the Aachen Cathedral in Germany. Note Her Isis knot.

When the Christian Empire forcibly forbade the worship of the Pagan Deities, the Goddesses and Gods did not die. But They did go underground. Yet Isis was one of the ones Who retained Her presence among the western world perhaps more than any other.

One of the underground lairs of the Deities was euhemerism. It’s the idea that the old Pagan Deities are merely historical mortals who, because of their special talents or moral worth, eventually came to be worshiped as Goddesses and Gods as Their stories became exaggerated over time. The concept is named after Euhemerus, a 3rd century BCE Greek mythographer. It wasn’t his original concept, though, yet it is his name that became associated with it and here we are.

A photo of the same carving

Euhemerism turned out to be not such a great look because ascending Christianity could use it to ridicule Pagans for being stupid in worshiping mere human beings. On the other hand, it preserved the stories of the Goddesses and Gods far into the West’s Christian-ruled centuries. You see, since these stories were not really about Deities, they could be told and retold without being a genuine threat to Christianity.

Churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages were often decorated equally with images of Pagan Deities and Biblical characters. The sibyls of the Pagans and the prophets of the Bible were both considered people of wisdom from whom the churchgoer could learn. And while the Church wasn’t completely comfortable with this arrangement (and sometimes even railed against it) still the practice continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.

In these stories, Isis is often seen as a culture-bearer and philosopher. In 1508, John Trithemius, the Abbot of Spanheim, lists Isis among the “men” who devoted themselves to the study of wisdom.

Verily in these times, as it evidently appears from the Histories of the Ancients, men more earnestly applied themselves to the study of wisdom, amongst whom the last learned and most eminent men, were Mercurius, Bacchus, Omogyius, Isis, Ianachus, Argus, Apollo, Cecrops, and many more, who by their admirable inventions, both profited the world then, and posterity since.

John Trithemius, De Septem Secundeis, A0-6
Christine de Pisan
Christine de Pisan

Allegory was another refuge of the Pagan Deities. Allegory interprets the myths or attributes of the Pagan Deities as moral tales or philosophical concepts. Again, it was a method created by Pagans themselves to find additional meaning in their myths. The Neoplatonists of the late Pagan period used allegory as a method to refute the arguments of Christians who claimed moral superiority for their religion. Pagans could point to allegorical interpretations of the myths to show how Pagan myths taught honor, chastity, fidelity, and other virtues. Eventually, the myths of the Pagan Deities came to be used at least as often as Biblical stories to teach “Christian” values.

Christine in her studio working

Today I’d like to introduce you to one of the writers who learned from the story of Isis and used it to teach moral virtues. Her name was Christine de Pisan (1364—1430 CE). De Pisan was born in Venice, but spent her life in France. Writing in the Late Middle Ages, de Pisan was an early feminist (some say the first feminist, some prefer proto-feminist); her work challenged misogyny and the gender stereotypes of her day. De Pisan was a fortunate medieval woman in that she had a lot of support from the men in her life. Her father, astrologer and secretary to King Charles V of France, taught her classical languages. She studied literature, mythology, history, and the Bible. She was married at 14 to Etienne du Castel, a nobleman from Picardy. He, too, supported his wife’s educational and writing endeavors.

When du Castel died of plague at age 25, Christine took to writing full time to support her three children and mother (who had not been as happy as her father with her work). She became the first woman writer to be able to support her family through her writing.

In much of her work, she wrote about the virtues of women as told in classical tales. She wrote poetry and prose, the biography of the King of France, she debated the anti-woman views in the Romance of the Rose as well as those coming from the pulpit, she wrote about the early victories of Joan of Arc when no one else had. Like Dante, she wrote about her visions; for instance, one in which Nature instructed her to write.

dePisan Ysys
Ysys (Isis) descends from heaven to graft new branches on old trees. The Goddess cultivates trees and fields just as the knight should cultivate virtues in himself.

So where does Isis come into it? In two of her most famous works: the Epistle of Othea to Hector and the Book of the City of Women.

As the Goddess Othea, a Goddess she created to represent the “Wisdom of Women,” de Pisan writes to the young Trojan hero Hector, who represented the ideal knight. The Epistle consists of 100 stories meant to teach values to the young. All the stories are derived from Pagan texts and authors like Homer and Ovid. In Othea, de Pisan describes Isis (Ysys) as a planter and cultivator.

An illustration accompanying the text shows Isis grafting new branches on old trees. The knight is advised to follow the example of the Goddess and plant virtues in himself. The planting of these virtues is to be understood as similar to the conception of Jesus by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Whose “great bounties may be neither imagined nor said.” As was so frequently the case, here Isis is assimilated with Mary.

De Pisan speaking to the Sibyl in her vision

De Pisan’s Book of the City of Women starts with three Goddesses visiting Christine: Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. They tell her she must create a place where “ladies and valiant women may have a refuge and a defense against the various assailants.” Her book is that place, where she tells the tales of such valiant women in history, Isis among them, of course. In this entry, Isis is still the planting Goddess, but also the “a woman of such great learning acquired through labor that she was not only named the Queen of Egypt but also the most singular and special goddess of the Egyptians.”

She also conflates the story of Isis with Io and has Isis married to Apis rather than Serapis or Osiris, presumably wishing to keep any hint of the Isis and Osiris sibling marriage out of it. (For the story of Isis and Io, go here. ) De Pisan also tells us that Isis invented a shortform (hieratic or Coptic?) of writing, which helped the Egyptians manage “their excessively involved script.” (As I writer, this was important to her.) De Pisan also names Isis as a lawgiver and extremely just ruler, causing Her to be worshiped all through the world.

The manuscript for Epistle of Othea to Hector showing Ceres planting and Ysis grafting.

And so, while we cannot claim that the worship of our Lady Isis is an uninterrupted tradition, I think we can rightfully claim that Isis never left human awareness. From the time when Her worship was forbidden to modern times when so many have returned to be sheltered in Her loving wings, Ysis-Isis-Iset-Auset, as you wish, continued to live in myth, in allegory, in stories, in poems by first-feminist poets, in wisdom teachings, in alchemy, and in so many of the flowing streams of the Western Esoteric Tradition.

Isis is alive. The Goddess is alive. And yes, She always has been.

Is Isis a Virgin Goddess?

Seen this about a million times? Yeah, me, too.

It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.

Recently, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.

Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.

Art by A-gnosis; see more work here.

We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)

So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?

Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.

Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.

Perhaps no text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi texts. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least they think that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Clearly, Isis is syncretized with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?

The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women, or young men for that matter, be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity with demanded, especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh, especially for women.

The Two Sisters

This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.

This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.

Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun

The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses and usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Ramesses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.

Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the inscriptions from the Isis Chapel at Abydos. In Egyptian, this is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the Egyptian name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmou here, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young. A young boy or youth is hunu.

Parthenogenesis was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves alone. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God.

So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. On this holy day and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.

Is Isis a Virgin Goddess?

Seen this about a million times? Yeah, me, too.

It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.

Recently, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.

Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.

Art by A-gnosis; see more work here.

We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)

So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?

Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.

Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.

Perhaps no text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi texts. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Clearly, Isis is identified with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?

The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women, or young men for that matter, be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity with demanded, especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh, especially for women.

The Two Sisters

This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.

This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.

Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun

The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses and usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Ramesses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.

Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the Egyptian hymns to Osiris (I believe it is from the Isis Chapel at Abydos; still checking into it.) In Egyptian, this would is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmou here, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young. A young boy or youth is hunu.

Parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction), was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God.

So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. On this holy day and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.

Coming to Isis

I am terrible with memories. I don’t mean my memory is bad. I mean I don’t honor ‘things past’ enough. I don’t take many pictures (and certainly not of myself). I tend not to care for traditional souvenirs. And I definitely have the “get rid of it” gene (which my beloved does not). In my defense, I don’t generally dwell on past wrongs either.

But I do keep magical journals. And semi-recently came across an old one. There were memories in it.

Not my magical journal, but I like…

When I keep journals, I don’t record everything all the time (good Goddess, the paper trail would never end!). Usually, I keep them during periods when I’m doing a lot of intensive magical work. This particular journal, as I have said, is old. I mean really old. Like “before the fire” old. Yes, of course, you don’t know what I mean.

Before we moved to the Pacific Northwest, we lived in an apartment in Tennessee. One night the complex caught on fire. Neighbors knocked on neighbors’ doors, telling them to get up and get out. We grabbed the cat and the insurance papers and got out. The next day, with the fire quenched, we were able to go back to survey the damage. It had been a weird fire. Things like our stereo system were completely and utterly incinerated. Things like our irreplaceable magical papers (papers, mind you!) were saved. This journal was among them. I can tell from the singed edges.

So I thought I’d sit down and read it. There was lots of visionary work pertaining to a magical system I was training in. But every now and then, there were entries about Isis. This was before I knew very much about Her, before I became Her priestess, and way before Isis Magic. Yet I clearly had been working with Her (or She was working with me).

A magical, glowing blue lotus

One entry reads, “I have had a very strong Isis connection since my dream the other night.” That dream was not recorded, but a vision was. I was working on love and acceptance. For the vision, I called on Isis to touch me and help me let Her love of humanity come through me. I sensed Her great, but gentle hand descend from above. She placed it on top of my head. Waves of Her not-quite-orgasmic love passed though me and out into the world. I describe that flow of energy, then write, “I again saw the bright, bright, blue glowing lotus.” It had been so bright that I couldn’t tell one petal from another; eventually, the lotus-light enveloped me. I conclude, “I am feeling very worshipful of Great Isis.”

I see myself falling in love with Her through this journal.

Another entry says, “A most wondrous dream! A prayer answered!” Apparently, my beloved was snoring, so I took my bedding and went into our temple room to sleep. I was overcome with a desire to know, truly know, that Isis was with me. I write that it was “a demanding, revealing need” for Her presence. I prayed to Her “more emotionally than ever before” to send a dream to let me know She was with me. I chanted Her name for a while, then slept.

This art was inspired by a dream the artist had of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. See what her dream was and more of her work here.

“A few hours later,” I write, “I came from a full, deep sleep to awake with loud sobbing from happiness and amazement.” (My sobbing.) Due to the abrupt awakening, I lost part of the dream. But the actual content of the dream wasn’t the point. The point was that, in the dream, the resolution to a dream-problem happened by a miracle. By Her miracle. And it made me so happy that I woke up crying with joy. And I again saw the blue lotus flower.

Woman picking blue lotus

I remember this event. The details are a bit fuzzy now, but I vividly remember the visionary blue lotus. I could see it anytime I closed my eyes with crystal clarity instead of the vague dreaminess that vision often has. “I must look up lotus symbolism and I must make a blue lotus talisman,” I wrote. See how much I didn’t know then? Another entry says simply, “I love Her.” And now you know why the Isis temple in my backyard is called the Lotus Temple.

Next, I found an entry that I had marked IMPORTANT with a drawing of a star, a lotus, and a sickle on top. I wrote, “In the dark month of February, on the 15th of the month, with the moon waning in Capricorn, I have taken and been taken by Isis in Her Black Aspect as my Lady, my personal Goddess.” But this wasn’t when I became Her priestess; that was long in the future then. This was my forming a true bond with Her, a bond that will last my entire life. She became “my” Goddess, I became Her devotee. This is when I really began learning about Her.

A priestess by Winged Isis; see more work here.

There is, of course, more in this journal. I see my own inner struggles, doubts, fears, angers, and depression. But this particular record is incomplete. These are loose-leaf pages without a binder…and it seems that some are missing. After we moved to Portland, I began buying blank-but-bound books for my journals. The next one—which I am still writing in—starts with the time when I actually did become Isis’ priestess. In this journal, I can see that I am working out the magic part for what will eventually become Isis Magic.

But I think I have regaled you with quite enough of my journal entries for now. And I have learned my lesson that I should better value memories and keepsakes. Perhaps you will do some magical work with Isis yourself today? After all, your story will be a much better tale—because it will be yours. Just don’t forget to write in your journal.

“I overcome Fate,” Isis as Queen of Fate

Do you believe in Fate?

If we look to ancient Egypt, we definitely find a concept of fate or destiny. It is shai (or shau). Like so many ancient concepts, Fate was personified, in this case as the God Shai. Shai comes from a root word meaning to ordain; as in that which is ordained. Often in ancient Egypt, what they thought was ordained was the length of one’s life. And, also often, this was connected with one or another of the Deities. People prayed that the Deities would lengthen their time on earth.

Shai and Meshkhenet at the Weighing of the Heart

In some of the Egyptian folk tales we have left to us, the time and sometimes the manner of death is decreed at birth by the Seven Hathors. In the story of the birth of the three kings, the Birth Goddess Meshkhenet is the one Who declares the destiny of the newborn kinglets. The Goddess Renenutet (or Renenet) is also a Destiny Goddess and could decree the prosperity a person might have in life. Shai and Renenutet are sometimes paired as Fate and Fortune or Fate and Destiny.

A wonderful Renenutet…couldn’t find the artist. Anyone?

Those of you who have been following along with this blog won’t be surprised to find that Our Lady of Ten Thousand Names was syncretized with each of these Fate-connected Goddesses.

We already know Her as as Lady Luck. But there is an even more important Isis-Fate connection. And that is, that She is the Ruler of Fate. In Her 1st century CE aretalogy from Kyme in Asia Minor, Isis says, “I overcome Fate. Fate obeys me.” In Egypt, She is called Mistress of Fate (Nebet Shai), Who Creates Destiny; She is Mistress of Life, Ruler of Fate and Destiny. At Aswan, She is “the One under Whose command fate and destiny is.”

Iset-Renenutet or Isis Thermouthis

Interestingly, sometimes the hieroglyphs for shai were determined (that is, they have another glyph at the end that gives the overall sense of the word) with the sign for either “death” or “time.” Surely this is because of the Egyptian connection between one’s fate and the time of one’s death. We already know Isis is connected with death and the otherworld. But She is also a Goddess of Time.

This is most easily seen when She is Iset-Sopdet or Isis-Sothis. As I write this, it is summer and the star of Isis, Sirius, is absent from the night sky. It will be some time before I can see Her rise before the sun in the dawning light.

As Isis Sothis, Isis controlled the time of the seasonal, all-important Nile Inundation by the rising of Her star. She is also connected with the timekeeping Egyptian decans, which are 36 stars or smaller groups of stars (asterisms). As the earth turns, each decan is visible for a period of about ten days (or 10 degrees of a 360-degree circle), after which another one rises, marking 360 days of the year. To get to 365, the Egyptians added the five epagomenal days that were “outside” of the year—and during which the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated. In addition to their yearly timekeeping, tracking the decanal stars and asterisms through the night sky served as a star clock for the Egyptians as they counted off the twelve Hours of the Night.

Isis-Sothis & Sah (Osiris) as stars

I’ve seen two different Egyptian names for the decans (decan is Greek for “a tenth”): baktiu and ankhiu. Baktiu, means “those who work” because, when it rose, each decan was said to be “working.” Ankhiu, as you might guess, means “living ones” because, as it rises, each decan is considered to be born. Iset-Sopdet is the first of the decans. Her heliacal rising just before the sun marks the beginning of the New Year. She leads and rules them all.

The Queen of the Decans is also the year as a whole, including what happens within that year. In Memphis, Isis-Hathor is called Renpet, the Year. One of the Oxyrhynchus papyri records one of the names of Isis in the Greek port city of Leuce Acte as Eseremphis, which is a Hellenized version of Iset Renpet. As the Year Itself, Isis decrees what fate each year brings. Horapollon, writing a late work on the meaning of hieroglyphs, says,

When the Egyptians want to represent the year they draw Isis, that is, a woman. And they signify the goddess in the same way. And among them, Isis is a star, called Sothis by the Egyptians, by the Greeks the Dog Star, which appears to rule over the other stars. Now greater, now less as it rises, and now brighter, now dimmer. And according to the rising of this star, we note how everything during the year is going to happen. Wherefore it is not unreasonable to call the year Isis.

Horapollon, book 1, entry 3
Isis-Sopdet (second from left) and the Star Deities from Seti I’s tomb

The temple of Ptah at Memphis was known (among other names) as “the Balance of the Two Lands.” The devotees who inscribed the Isis aretalogy at Kyme, in which Isis declares that She overcomes fate, wrote that they had copied it from a stele that stood in front of the Memphis temple of Hephaestos, that is, Ptah. German Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch commented in his thesaurus of Egyptian inscriptions that the Egyptian New Year’s festival was “the great festival at which the whole world is brought into balance, when the birth of Isis takes place.”

From our friends at The Motherhouse of the Goddess

During the period of Roman rule in Egypt and across the Roman empire, people were feeling particularly pressured or bound by Fate. Astrology had gained general popularity, yet people felt constrained, not enlightened, by “their stars.” So we can easily understand the appeal of a Goddess Who, as the Kyme aretalogy says, regulates the pathways of the stars and orders the course of the sun and moon—and Who also frees those who are in chains.

A Roman image of Isis Fortuna

We find all these themes in Apuleius’ story of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. When he comes into Her service, Lucius is freed from his asinine state (he had been turned into a donkey). Isis, a Goddess of Fortune Who sees, replaces the Blind Fortune that had been tossing Lucius to and fro. Instead of implacable Fate, he is now allied with Invincible Isis, Victorious Isis, Triumphant Isis—Isis Who is Providence Itself.

As She always has been, Isis is Nebet Ankh, Henut Shai yt Renenet, Mistress of Life, Ruler of Fate and Destiny. And perhaps in these unsettling times, we too need a Goddess Who can overcome Fate…or help us to do so ourselves.

And so, let us commune with Isis—invoke and make offering to Her. Let us work magic under Her wings and then work in the world toward a better destiny for us all.

How often do you connect with Goddess Isis?

Offering prayer

Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Only at festivals?

And no matter what you do, do you sometimes feel guilty that you’re not doing enough? Do you worry that Isis may be displeased because you’re “not doing it right?”

If so, you’re not alone. Many of us feel like that from time to time (or even more often).

But let me tell you a secret.

It’s not a deep, dark secret. In fact, I think we all know it in our hearts. But we are human and we forget.

The first part of this secret is that Isis knows. She knows what we’re going through and what’s hard for us right now. She has Divine patience and compassion. And while we might not have infinite time in our lives, She does. If we drift away, She will always, always welcome us back. Even if it’s with a sly smile and a wry comment.

Kissing the ground before Her beautiful face

The other part of the secret is that—very often—our way of relating has to do with where we are in our lives. Now, mind you, my next comments are very generalized. Your path may—absolutely will, in fact—vary.

Some of us find Her early in life, some of us at later points. Some find Her, leave for a while, then come back. Some come to Her only for a specific period in our lives. Whatever the situation, it’s important to take into account where we are in our individual lives and what’s going on with us in general before we start getting all guilty and worried. And by “where we are in our lives,” I mean what stage of life we’re in as we grow and change over the decades.

Isis ritual on a fresco from Herculaneum

In our teen years, we’re exploring. Everything is new and can be confusing. Will the Goddess be angry if I don’t have an altar? What if I don’t say or do the right thing? And there are so many people online who are willing to tell us exactly-what-we-should-be-doing for Isis or Hekate or Dionysos. Who do I listen to? Depending on what our home lives are like, in our teens, we may also have to hide our interest in Isis. (Btw, She won’t care if you don’t have an altar.)

The orant posture, standing in awe of Her

In our 20s, we find new freedoms. We might discover like-minded others with whom to explore an interest in Isis. This is when many people start their personal practice and begin to develop the habits that will become a key part of their ongoing relationship with Isis. And because we’re more in control of our own schedule, this is when we might find we have more time to spend with Her and to learn more about Her. At this stage, we’re trying to figure out Who We Are and Who She Is. We might discover that She is an important part of our identity.

Do what you can do

In our 30s, we are coming into our power. But that also means that we’re coming into Peak Responsibility. Kids. Career. And everything that goes along with that. Our late 20s and early 30s are also a time when we may find we have some personal healing to do. We discover that what we learned earlier no longer serves us (or never served us, for that matter).

Such healing that takes time, patience, and extraordinary effort. For most of us, the 30s, early 40s, is a crazy-busy time of life. If the personal practice we started in our 20s starts to slip, it’s no wonder. We need to know that it’s okay to scale back our spiritual work in order to handle the things we need to handle. And yet, for some people, this is also the time of life when they first come to Isis. So, they’re starting that exciting journey along with everything else. Whew!

In our 40s and 50s, we still have everything that was going on in our 30s, but it’s at a different level. We know a lot more about what we’re doing. We also have the ability to focus more on the tasks we choose. If we have Work To Do in the World, we’re busy doing it. We lead our covens, make our art, write our books. Or, if our Work is private, we deepen our practice. We might find that it gets easier to make contact with Isis when we invoke Her—even if we can’t do it as often as we would wish. What’s more, if we’re Doing Our Work (groups, art, writing), that IS our Work. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. Remember, She knows our hearts.

Priestesses making offering

In our 60s, we still feel our power—and we still have our power. But to navigate these years, we shift our focus. For most of us, there’s less time ahead than there is behind. Peak Responsibilities are lessening; we’re handling them, or have even handled them. Now we may find that we have more time for our personal relationship with Isis. We find new and different ways to be present in the world and our own lives, and to be of service to and in harmony with Her.

In the later decades of our lives, we may, once again, turn within. We assess our lives. We think about our legacy. And make whatever adjustments are needed. We plan for transition. Who am I now? If we are fortunate enough to be able to retire, our time is—finally, blessedly—our own. If we wish, we can be a full-time Servant of the Goddess and no one can say us nay. Isis will welcome us home and She will continue to teach us new things about ourselves and about Her.

Priests making offering

The inspiration behind today’s post is that I’ve seen too many good folks beating up on themselves for not living up to whatever high spiritual standard they have decided to subscribe to. Let’s not do that. We don’t deserve that. None of us do. Especially you.

The point is simply this: at whatever point in your life you are, just do what you can do. None of us who love Isis today live in an ancient Egyptian temple where we can devote ourselves fully to Her service. We always have many other aspects of life we have to take care of. Responsibilities wax and wane throughout our lives.

Of course I’m not saying that our spiritual lives aren’t important. They are. Sometimes it is our spiritual lives that make the other aspects of life manageable. All this is to say, whatever it is that you can do, just do that—and don’t feel guilty or worried about what you can’t do. Isis is wise and loving, magical and powerful. She will be there. Always. I know She will be there for me. Always. And I know She will be there for you. Always.

Isis & the Ankh

The awesome scene from “The Mummy” when the statue of Isis raises the ankh to save Her reincarnated priestess from a lovestruck but murderous mummy

Of all the emblems of ancient Egypt, the hieroglyphic symbol of the ankh is probably the most familiar. Many people still wear it as an amulet and know that, in Egyptian, ankh means life.

Every Deity has an ankh

The ankh was extremely popular in ancient Egypt, too. Egyptians made ankh-shaped vessels, fan bases, sistra, unguent jars, jewelry, mirror cases—in addition to wearing the symbol itself as an amulet. Special bouquets of flowers, formed into the shapes of ankhs and simply called Ankhs, were given as offerings to Deities and as sustenance to the dead. The ankh was carved into temple walls and used to decorate furniture.

In later times, the Coptic Christian church used it as the crux ansata, the handled or “eyed” cross, because of its resemblance to the Christian cross.

Egyptologists still aren’t sure what the familiar oval-and-cross shape originally represented. Some believe it has sexual symbolism because some ankhs have what appears to be a female pubic triangle painted just beneath the cross bar. Others believe it represents a sandal strap. Still others see it as a type of magical knot or bow—similar to the Isis Knot or Tyet, which it closely resembles. Since Egyptian magic frequently employed knots, this idea is not at all far-fetched. Indeed, in some examples of the symbol, you can see what could be folds in the fabric or rope used to tie the knot.

My favorite bumper sticker

Yet another interpretation combines the knot concept with an idea that may have some merit since it actually connects with the meaning of the symbol itself: life. In this interpretation, the ankh is an umbilical cord that has been looped and tied to a short stick (the cross bar) to create the ankh-shaped amulet. Thus the ankh represents the way Life flows from the Divine to the human in the same way that life flows from the mother to the child through the umbilical cord. There are numerous references to Isis “cutting the navel string” of the reborn Horus. And there is even a myth that Horus recovers the birth cord of His murdered father, Osiris, in order to bury it safely. In a tale about the birth of three kings, the children’s birth cords are cut off, wrapped, and preserved. Clearly, the birth cord had significance.

Isis giving ankh to Queen Nefertari

Yet the life symbolized by the ankh is more than simple daily existence. It is also the sacred and ever-renewing principle of Life. It is the Eternal Life with which the Goddesses and Gods imbue humanity. It is the Life that is renewed after death. In funerary art, Deities such as Anubis and Horus pour streams of ankhs over the deceased to symbolize this eternal, regenerating life that flows from the Divine. Goddesses and Gods hold the ankh to the nose of the deceased to revive her or him in the Otherworld.

While the ankh is rightfully a symbol of every Deity, it is also especially appropriate to Isis. On an earthly level, Isis is the Great Divine Mother, the generatrix of all life on Earth. Isis is intimately connected with the fields that bring forth food, the waters that nourish and regenerate the land, and the life-giving air that fills our lungs. 

Isis is a Green Goddess of Life, daughter of Earth and Sky. The Coffin Texts call Her She of Vegetation and Mistress of Herbage Who Makes the Two Lands Green. She is a Water Goddess for Her yearly tears for Osiris caused the Nile to overflow its banks, vivifying the land. She is the Queen of the Sea and the Lady Who brings rain. As a Bird Goddess, Isis is Mistress of the Skies and a Lady of Air.

Isis and Nephthys flanking the ankh, which upholds the solar disk and is supported by the djed column

On a spiritual level, Isis gives the gift of renewed life after death. Beating Her magical wings, the Goddess fans air—and ankh—into the nose and lungs of Her beloved Osiris. It is Isis’ vital breath that fills the nemset jars with which the deceased is dried after a purifying bath. And it is Isis Who brings the spiritual water that helps regenerate the dead.

As She is the Lady of Life, Isis is the Lady of Life Everlasting. She is the Green Goddess of life on Earth and She is the Divine Mother of each of us Who cuts our navel-string when we are transformed and reborn into Eternal Life.

An Isis Divination

Oops. I totally forgot to post yesterday. We had a divination party on Saturday, so was cleaning up and resting after that.

But in honor of that and in the spirit of the veil-thin-between-the-worlds season, I offer you an ancient method of divination that is specifically connected with our magical Lady Isis. It is (a bit) new in that it is a new translation of the ancient text in which the divination is found. The new translation doesn’t really change things much but it does, perhaps, give us a slightly better understanding of the original. And that’s always good.

A Coptic (not Demotic) magical papyrus

The other new thing is that we can try it for ourselves.

This Isiac divination is found in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. You’ll usually see them just called the Greek Magical Papyri (Latin: Papyri Graecae Magicae, abbreviated PGM) because they are written in Greek, but the scholars who worked on them tell us that they reflect, in large part, Egyptian magical techniques, so I prefer Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. What’s more, we also have a cache of similar magical texts written in Demotic, which is a late, cursive version of the hieroglyphs. Demotic is derived from hieratic, which was an earlier, priestly version of cursive hieroglyphs. So those are unarguably Egyptian. Here’s some background on these fascinating texts.

The particular text I want to discuss is listed on the linked page above, but for easy reference, here it is again:

Great is the Lady Isis! Copy of a holy book found in the archives of Hermes: the method is that concerning the 29 letters through which letters Hermes and Isis, who was seeking Osiris, her brother and husband, found him. Call upon Helios and all the gods in the deep concerning those things for which you want to receive an omen. Take 29 leaves of a male date palm and write on each of the leaves the names of the gods. Pray and then pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf and you will find your omen, how things are, and you will be answered clearly.

PGM XXIVa
Male date palm leaves; big enough to write on

This seems like a simple, easy, and fairly quick divination method.

It is likely that the 29 letters refer to the 29 letters of the Coptic alphabet. Coptic is the latest form of ancient Egyptian. The letters are adaptations of Greek, but with additional letters that incorporate Egyptian-language sounds that Greek didn’t have. It developed under the all-pervading influence of Hellenism in the Mediterranean region. Because the text instructs us to write the names of the Deities on the 29 palm leaves, I would assume that each of the Deity names written on the leaves had one of the Coptic letters as the initial letter of the name.

But that’s just a guess, not a certainty, and we simply have no other information. On the other hand, the Egyptians may have had tables of correspondences that connected the Deities to the Coptic alphabet like many modern magical systems do and which may or may not have been based on the spelling of the Deity name.

The Coptic alphabet

Oh, and just to be clear, this particular text WAS written originally in Greek, not Coptic or Demotic. But because the “29 letters” probably refers to the Coptic alphabet, we may understand this as likely to be a genuine Egyptian method of divination, but recorded in Greek.

Those of you who looked at the Coptic alphabet here may have noticed something: that it has more than 29 letters. (And, in fact, you will see some variations in the letters included, depending on dialect as well as the time period in which it was in use.)

That’s why I want to share with you a new translation of that same passage by David Jordan, head of the Canadian Archeological Institute in Athens, an Egyptologist and expert in the ancient magical texts. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it seems pretty reasonable to my definitely-not-an-expert self.

Great Isis the Lady. Copy of a sacred book found in the archives of Hermes. The method is the odd number of letters [i.e. 29; the number was actually a marginal note in the text rather than a number found inside the text itself], through which Hermes received omens and Isis, searching, found her own brother and husband Osiris. Say: ‘I invoke the sun and all the gods in the deep’—about whatever you wish to receive an omen. Taking 29 leaves of a male palm, write on each of the leaves (one of) the names of the gods and, when you have said a prayer, pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf, and you will find wherein your omen consists, and you will receive an omen lucidly.

PGM XXIVa, revised translation

So you see, it’s not much different and certainly not in terms of how to actually do the divination. It’s just always interesting to me to see the graceful art of translation in action. The translator makes note that the initial phrase, “Great Isis the Lady,” appears in one other place that we know of: a graffito found in Rome. (There’s another well known Roman graffito related to Isis that I’ve written about before, which was found on one of the walls of the Temple of Isis in Rome. It says, Una, quae es omnia, Dea Isis, “Being one, You are all, Goddess Isis.”)

The fact that the phrase “Great Isis the Lady” was well known enough to be a graffito adds weight to Jordan’s translation. In this case, the phrase may be intended as the title of the divination method. It gains power and prestige from being the method the Great Magician Goddess Isis used to find Osiris and Thoth (Hermes) the Great Magician God used to receive omens.

So let’s give it a try.

Because I am sometimes lazy and didn’t have access to male palm leaves, I did it the cheap-and-easy way just to see how it worked on the quickie. It will definitely be worth following up on the more authentic track, too.

Some of the cards from the Book of Doors by Alison Davidson and Athon Veggi.

Instead of palm leaves with Deity names on them, I used 29 cards from an Egyptian-themed divination deck that I like. It’s called the Book of Doors. (If it appeals to you, you can get it from Inner Traditions or used on eBay.) It’s not a tarot deck with the traditional Arcana. Instead, it has an Egyptian Deity associated with each card and groups Them into families like Sun, Moon, Air, or Fire. The authors call it an “alchemical oracle.” I like the art.

Anyway, for this first attempt, I didn’t choose the 29 Deities based on Coptic alphabet initial letters, I just picked 29 of the most well known Goddesses and Gods, including Set and Apophis, because there have to be options in a divination.

First, we invoke…

We could follow the text and simply say, “I invoke Helios and all the gods of the deep about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could choose Egyptian names: “I invoke Re and the Primordial Ogdoad, the Great Infinities, about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could go All-Isis-All-the-Time: “I invoke Isis, the Radiant Goddess, Isis-Re-et, Great of Magic, in Her Name of Lady of the Depths about [stating the subject of the divination].” Take your pick.

The benevolent Hathor

Then we shuffle the 29 cards and spread them out, face down. In our hearts, we speak a prayer to Great Isis the Lady to reveal the true omen and send the Goddess, send the God Who will help us discover the answer. We pick up the cards, two by two, leaving them face down until there is only one left. That card, we turn over.

The question I asked was whether this divination method was truly an Isis divination. When revealed, the singleton card was Hathor. In this particular deck, Hathor is in the transformational family of Fire and She is shown emerging from the Otherworld.

How shall we interpret?

First reaction: Hathor is a strongly positive Goddess and, in this card, She is not in Her raging-Sakhmet aspect. If I had to give a quick yes/no answer, I’d definitely say yes, this IS a legit Isis divination. Or, since this card is part of a divination deck, we could use the interpretation provided by the authors. Their short-form answer for Hathor is “love, pleasure, beauty.” So again, I’d take that as a yes.

A stunning image of Beyonce as Hathor from her film, Black is King. This is absolutely wonderful!

We could also go deeper into what we might know about Hathor Herself. She is a Great Goddess associated with the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. She is the all-containing sky Whose name means “House of Horus;” She is the greater sky in which He flies.

Because She is so all-containing, Hathor indicates that this is a divination method that contains all omens and is thus appropriate for receiving a wide range of Divine counsel. As a Lady of the earth, nature, and fertility, we may understand that the oracle can also provide earth-plane practical advice. Hathor is also a Goddess of the Otherworld and, in this card, is specifically shown emerging from it. Thus we can expect the emergence of revelations—as well as Mysteries—from this divination method.

If we choose, we could understand the divination on a more personal level, too. For instance, in another area of my magical life, I have a connection with Hathor, specifically with Her late-period form and Her Egyptian Coptic name of Ahathoor. So perhaps I could say that this could be a particularly good method of divination for me.

And, of course, Isis and Hathor were more and more closely connected as time time passed in Egyptian history; so much so that They shared many of each others’ epithets and symbols.

In sum, I’d say the answer to my question is definitely yes; this is a divination that could be very useful for those of us who honor Isis. Personally, I am looking forward to using it a lot more, learning more about it, and perhaps I can find some of those male palm leaves.

Here’s a great graphic showing how Demotic evolved from the hieroglyphs.

Is your sacred image of Isis “alive”?

If so, how did that happen?

Did you do a specific ritual? Did it slowly gain its living quality over time?

Following the inspirations of ancient Egyptian cult, for me, the ones that are alive are so because of ritual. I’ve used versions of “Enlivening the Divine Image” from Isis Magic on several of them. But my main image—my BIG Isis—was enlivened long before Isis Magic existed.

To enliven Her, I invited a circle of friends to come over for an Isis birthday party. There was ritual around everything, of course, but the main event was that each participant cradled the image in their arms, as if holding a baby, and breathed their living breath into the sacred image…then passed Her to the next person. And it worked; She has been quite lively ever since.

But what exactly do I mean by “is alive,” anyway?

Let me give you an example. Several years ago, one of the traveling Egyptian museum shows came to our local museum and a group of us went. Of course, there were many wonderful things. But one image—smallish, broken, a head of Sakhmet in yellow alabaster—hummed with magical power. I felt Something in its presence. Mind you, not everything in the show felt like that. But this piece did. I think what I felt was the magic of the ritual that had “opened the mouth and eyes” of this sacred image of Sakhmet so that something of the Goddess was still within the image. The priests who worked that rite, those guys were good. This Sakhmet had power; it had life.

That’s what I want from my sacred images of Isis, too. When someone visits my Isis shrine, I hope they feel Something. A little buzz. A little hum. A little magic that says, “yes, I’m here.”

From the very start of the artistic process of making such a sacred image, the ancient Egyptians knew they were creating something that would be alive. Sculptors sometimes referred to their work as “giving birth.”

We are used to thinking of Egyptian statuary are gargantuan. But the main cult image in each temple—the one kept in the holy of holies and cared for each day—was likely no more than about a foot in height for anthropomorphic images. We know this due to the size of the shrines that enclosed these images. So this means that the size of the images many of us have on our own home altars are very much in harmony with the most important Egyptian temple images. I like that. A lot.

The oldest texts we have that provide information on what the ancients thought about their divine images come from the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE), but the ideas in them are likely much older. We find this information in ritual texts for the Daily Ritual, which cared for and fed the Deity and the Opening of the Mouth rite used to enliven the images, as well as some additional temple texts that mention the relationship between the Deities and Their images.

At core, what these texts make apparent is that some part of the essence of the Deity was considered to be alive in the sacred image. In the Daily Ritual, the sacred image is awakened, clothed, praised, and anointed as a living being. Each step in the ritual re-enlivens the statue each time the ritual is performed. Toward the end of the rite, the priest can finally say to the Deity in the image, “oh living ba who smites His enemies, Your ba is with You and Your sekhem is with You.” In this case, the ba of the Deity is Their manifestation (ba also has connotations of power) and sekhem is the word for power. The priest then says that he, too, is a ba and embraces the sacred image.

So at this point, the ba of the Deity is in the image. Ba is a complicated term and I won’t go into all its complications here. (Besides, I’m still learning about some of them.) For our purposes here, we can think of the ba of a Deity as Their Presence or Manifestation. In this way, the sacred image of the Deity IS the outward manifestation of the Deity. But that’s not all that it is. For we have other texts that tell us that the ba of the Deity swoops down like a great hawk to alight upon the image and indwell it.

But back to the Daily Ritual…

Next, food is presented and now the emphasis shifts to the ka of the Deity. The ritual says that Ma’et embraces the Deity “so that your ka will exist through Her.” The simplest definition for ka is “vital essence;” it’s the difference between alive and dead. And since I am, at this moment, into simplification, we’ll let that do for now.

The hieroglyph for the word ka is two upraised arms, perhaps intended to be read as an embrace. For it is through an embrace that ka may be passed, for example, from Atum to His children Shu and Tefnut to protect Them and give Them Their kas. The royal ka—the ancestral power that makes the pharaoh a pharaoh—is passed by an embrace from the old king as Osiris to his heir as Horus.

So we have two aspects of the Deity present in the sacred image during the Daily Rituals: ba and ka. The ba is the Presence and the ka is Life. It is through the ka that the Deity Who is alive in the sacred image receives offerings. You can read more about that here.

These sacred images were taken out in procession during certain festivals. On such occasions, the Deity would also be present in the image—present enough to give oracular responses, and we even have one instance of a man claiming that he was cured of blindness during such a procession. Unfortunately, we don’t have texts of any of the rituals that might re-enliven or “charge up” the image before going out, but we know they existed because the library at Edfu was supposed to contain a book of “all ritual relating to the exodus of the God from His temple on feast days.”

From another temple text, we know that the Opening of the Mouth ritual was performed on statues. The full name of the text is “Performing the Opening of the Mouth in the workshop for the statue (tut) of (Name of person or Deity).” The key part of that ritual was known as netjerty, when the mouth of the image was touched with the adze, a specific craftsman’s tool. Netjerty is formed from the root Netjer (also Nutjer, Neter)—Deity—so we can understand that this part of the rite was a god-ifying part. Much of the rest of the ritual is very similar to the Daily Ritual and its magic, with both ba and ka present.

Other than these references in the Daily Ritual and Opening of the Mouth, there are a few scattered references about the relationship between Deity and image. In the Hibis temple of Amun-Re, all the other Deities are considered aspects of Him as Creator. And, as Creator, He is also the one Who creates His own image. He made it “according to His desire, He having graced it with the grace of His breath…” In the Daily Ritual text that we have for Amun, He is said to be “the tut Who made Their [all the Deities] kas.”

In several similar passages, the creation of the sacred image is attributed to the Deity Who’s image it was. This reminds me of why all the books of Egypt could be said to have been written by Thoth: the scribe, in the act of writing, is in the Godform of Thoth, so the book is written by Thoth. Perhaps the sculptors and artists were supposed to be in the Deityform of the Deity they were sculpting, too. I am imagining an artist, in the Goddessform of Isis, crafting Her image by channeling inspiration from Her.

In what is known as the Memphite Theology, Ptah the Craftsman is the Creator and He creates the bodies—statues—of all the Deities according to Their desire, so that They willingly “enter into” Their bodies and Their kas are satisfied.

At Isis’ temple at Philae, a text says that Isis’ son Horus is the one who established all the temples and made all the sacred images. Horus and Hathor were known to “go out as Their statues” during one of Their festivals. Edfu temple also has passages that say the Deities “unite with Their bas in the horizon—the akhet, that most liminal of liminal places and a very reasonable place to work this transitional magic.

From these and similar clues, we can be sure that a Deity’s ba and ka were understood to be present in Their sacred images. What’s more, Their presence in one temple neither precluded nor diminished Their presence or power in another. Both ka and ba are in divinely infinite supply.

Thus Isis can be alive and present in my shine, on your altar, and on the altars and in the shrines of all those who love Her.

May She bless and be alive in your sacred image always.

The Divine Bread of Isis

I offer bread to the Goddess
Offering bread to the Goddess

Here in the famously cloudy Pacific Northwest, I find myself thinking of a hot bowl of soup and a slice, well buttered, of bread. So today, I write today in honor of bread—both as a worthy offering to Isis and Her Divine family and as a powerful symbol of transformation.

Indeed, the offering tables of ancient Egypt fairly groaned beneath the weight of loaves of offered bread. In tomb paintings you can see them, baked into neat, conical or oval shapes and piled high upon the altars. “Thousands of loaves” were promised to Deities and deceased pharaohs. Excavations have shown that actual loaves of bread were among the grave goods of kings and commoners alike. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased declares he will live on the bread of the Goddesses and Gods.

An offering table with the bread and wine already on it
An offering table with the round loaves of bread and pitchers of wine already and eternally upon it

As in so many places in the world, bread in ancient Egypt was a basic, even archetypal, food and the grain from which it was made, an essential, as well as symbolic, food crop. To the ancient Egyptians, a loaf of bread came to symbolize all types of food offerings and all good things.

Both Isis and Osiris are strongly connected with bread and the grain from which it is made. A number of Isis’ epithets attest to this. She is the Lady of Bread and Beer, Lady of Green Crops, Goddess of the Fertility of the Field, and the Lady of Abundance. (And by “bread and beer” the Egyptians meant more than just a sandwich wrapper and a drink. The phrase meant every good thing; Egyptians would even greet each other by saying, “bread and beer,” thus wishing each other prosperity.)

Lady and Lord of Abundance
Lady and Lord of Green Crops

For Osiris’ part, like so many Gods, He is identified with the cycle of the living and dying grain. The Coffin Texts connect Osiris and grain with immortality: “I am Osiris . . . I live and grow as Neper [“Corn” or “Grain”], whom the august gods bring forth that I may cover Geb [the earth], whether I be alive or dead. I am barley, I am not destroyed.” The texts also tell us that the deceased, identified with Osiris as the Divine grain, nourishes the common people, makes the Gods Divine, and “spiritualizes” the spirits. Thus bread and grain are more than just bodily sustenance; they are spiritual sustenance as well.

I am emmer wheat and I will not die
I live and grow as Grain…

Temple walls show grain growing out of the body of the dead Osiris while His soul hovers above the stalks. But it is not enough that the grain sprouts and grows. It must also be transformed so that Osiris Himself may also be transformed. And, as in the main Isis and Osiris myth, the Goddess is the one Who transforms the God. In the myth, She does this by reassembling His body and fanning life into Him with Her wings. Using the grain metaphor, Isis becomes the Divine Baker Who transforms the raw grain into the risen and nourishing bread. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased person asks for a funeral meal of “the cake that Isis baked in the presence of the Great God.”

Emmer wheat
Emmer wheat, the most common type from which the ancient Egyptians made bread

As a symbol of transformation and ongoing life, grain has magical properties. Some of the funerary texts have the deceased rubbing her body with barley and emmer wheat in order to partake of these magically transforming properties.

In several temples where important festivals of Osiris were held, the priests made a complex form of bread, called Divine Bread, that was molded in the shape of Osiris. (In fact, the ancient Egyptians were quite adept at using molds to bake bread in a variety of shapes and forms.) The Osirian Divine Bread was made from grain and a special paste consisting of ingredients such as Nile mud, dates, frankincense, fresh myrrh, 12 spices with magical properties, 24 precious gems, and water.

A "corn Osiris" ... perhaps molded like the Divine Bread
A “corn Osiris” … perhaps molded like the larger Divine Bread of Mendes?

At Denderah, this Divine Bread was modeled into the shapes of the pieces of the body of Osiris and sent to the various cities in which Isis was said to have enshrined them.

At Mendes (which is where, we must note, the phallus of Osiris was enshrined), a sacred marriage was part of the Osirian celebrations. It took place between the Goddess Shontet, a form of Isis, and Osiris as the grain. In the Goddess’ holy of holies, Her sacred statue was unclothed and grain was strewn on a special bed before Her. After allowing some time for the Goddess and God to unite, the grain was gathered up, then wrapped in cloth, watered, and used to model a full-body figure of Osiris Khenti-Amenti (“Osiris, Chief of the West,” that is, the Land of the Dead). Finally, Osiris the Divine Bread was buried with full ceremony, including a priestess who took the role of Isis to mourn Him and work the transforming magic of the Goddess.

Gathering lotuses for the lotus bread
Gathering lotuses for the lotus bread

Several ancient writers describe an entirely different type of bread also associated with Isis. It is lotus bread. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians who lived in the Delta gathered the lotuses that grow profusely there. They dried the centers containing the seeds then pounded them into flour that was made into bread. Lotus-seed bread was made from both the white and the blue water lilies. The lily rhizomes were also used; they were dried, then ground into flour for bread making—though the rhizome version was likely to have been less palatable than the seed bread. In Diodorus’ account of Egyptian prehistory, he mentions that lotus bread was one of the Egyptian subsistence foods and that the “discovery of these is attributed by some to Isis.”

Isis is the Lady of Abundance Who gives us the bread of earthly life; and She is the Divine Baker Who makes the magical bread that gives us eternal life. She is the Goddess Who regenerates the Grain God as She guides the transformation of Her Beloved from the threshed grain into the ever-living Green God Osiris. She is the Goddess of Divine Bread Who feeds our bodies and souls and Her sacred bread is a pleasing offering to Isis, Goddess of Transformation.

Let’s get baking!

More Occult History of the Mensa Isiaca

Isis leading the initiate…

Part 3

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been looking into the history—occult and otherwise—of the unique artifact known as the Mensa Isiaca or Table/t of Isis. And it is, literally, unique. We have no other ancient artifact like it. It is a large bronze tabletop, or perhaps altar top, with Egyptianizing figures and pseudo-hieroglyphs, all expertly crafted in polychrome metals.

Lets dive back in and see what some other writers, thinkers, and magicians had to say about it.

Following Kircher’s intensive explication of the meaning of the Mensa, it became a subject of much scholarly discussion. For centuries.

In 1719, a monk named Bernard de Montfaucon addressed the Mensa. Montfaucon was a scholar and is credited with helping to develop early archeology. He thought the Mensa described Egyptian religion in some way and found it very symbolical and enigmatic. He went on to describe the Mensa in some detail, seeing almost every figure in it as either Isis or Osiris. Of Kircher’s interpretation, he commented, somewhat snarkily, that he doubted whether any Egyptian had ever thought as he did.

Another of the sections of the Mensa

In his Sacred and Profane History of the World Connected, Samuel Shuckford considered the Mensa to have been made before the Egyptians came to worship their Deities in anthropomorphic form because the priests shown kneeling in the border all kneel before animal forms.

William Warburton, a Christian Bishop and writer, came pretty close to modern thinking about the Mensa. He thought it was made in Rome by an Isis devotee due to the odd mixture of hieroglyphs and the fact the Isis is clearly the most important figure. Yet another writer, Paul Ernest Jablonski, thought the central figure was Neith. He saw Isis in a number of the other female figures and thought that the Mensa was a calendar of Egyptian festivals, adjusted to Rome.

Levi’s attribution of the sections of the Mensa Isiaca to Qabalistic and astrological symbolism—and thus to the tarot

The English masonic authority, Kenneth Mackenzie took note of the Mensa because of its three-part division and thus its possible correspondence with three-part craft masonry.

Eliphas Levi, a French writer, esotericist, and magician, also had an interest in the Mensa Isiaca. Writing in his History of Magic (1860), Levi said,

The most curious, and at the same time the most complete key to the Tarot, or modern version of the famous Book of Thoth, is found in the Isiac Tablet of Cardinal Bembo, which has been represented by Kircher in his work on Egypt: this learned Jesuit has divined, without being able to establish complete proof, that this Tablet contained a key in hieroglyphics to the sacred alphabet.

History of Magic, Eliphas Levi

(You see, it was the secrets of the Alphabet of Thoth that the Hebrews took with them when they left Egypt…and thus developed Qabalah…which, in Hermetic Qabalah, has correspondences to the tarot.)

Looking at his chart (above) and his description in his book, I am baffled as to how he reached some of his conclusions. For instance, he says there are 21 images in the middle register that correspond to the letters of the alphabet. Surely he must mean the Hebrew alphabet, but neither the French, Hebrew, nor Egyptian alphabets have 21 letters. Second, there’s no way I can count the figures in the middle register that adds up to 21. You?

An easier-to-see illustration of the Mensa Isiaca; click to enlarge

But perhaps it’s all just too recondite and admirable for me. Or perhaps Levi cheated a bit. Westcott (remember him from last week?) was a big fan of Levi and in his own book on the Mensa, he expanded on Levi’s comments, connecting the images and divisions of the Mensa to various Qabalistic and astrological symbols.

Manly P. Hall in his Secret Teachings of All Ages introduces the section on the Mensa Isiaca by quoting “a manuscript by Thomas Taylor” that said,

Plato was initiated into the ‘Greater Mysteries’ at the age of 49. The initiation took place in one of the subterranean halls of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The Isiac Table formed the altar, before which the Divine Plato stood and received what was always his, but which the ceremony of the Mysteries enkindled and brought from its dormant state. With this ascent, after three days in the Great Hall, he was received by the Hierophant of the Pyramid (the Hierophant was seen only by those who had passed the three days, the three degrees, the three dimensions) and given verbally the Highest Esoteric Teachings. After a further three months’ sojourn in the halls of the Pyramid, the Initiate Plato was sent out into the world to do the work of the Great Order, as Pythagoras and Orpheus had been before him.

Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Due to the popularity of Secret Teachings, this statement has been often repeated in various esoteric publications, both print and digital. For the record, there is nothing like this in any of Thomas Taylor’s* published works, nor are there any known records of such details of Plato’s purported initiation. According to the Greek historian and geographer Strabo, Plato studied in Egypt for 13 years, learning geometry and theology. But the description above sounds perhaps a bit too masonic with its three degrees. For the rest of his section on the Mensa, Hall relies mainly on Westcott’s book.

Strangely, this part of the Mensa is what Kircher labels the Azonian Hecatine Triad

Perhaps it was a subconscious prompting. Or perhaps it really was a meaningful synchronicity. But here’s what’s going on. I keep a folder with blog post ideas. And since the Getty Museum semi-recently put out a paper on their study of the Mensa, I thought, “why not?” What I intended to be one post turned into three. And then I came across a somewhat surprising name in Kircher’s discussion of the Mensa. The name is Hekate.

Where does She come into it? Remember that Westcott remarked that the Mensa’s cosmic scheme is almost identical to that of the Chaldean Oracles? Well, if you’ve got Chaldean Oracles, you’ve got Hekate. She is the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World, and the connector between the Empyrean (heavenly) and Hylic (earthly) Worlds.

And that funny word, Iynx, with which the Mensa’s Isis is labeled? It can be a magical tool—the so-called strophalos, or wheel, of Hekate—a bird used in erotic magic, or a type of Being in the Chaldean system. As a Being, Iynges (plural) are “transmitters” of higher-level energies to the lower worlds. The Hathor-headed pillar in the center of the image (above) is what Kircher says is “Isis under the form of Hekate.”

Isis—as the “Supreme Mind, or Pantomorphous Iynx”—sits in the center of the Mensa, connecting everything and transmitting the Divine energies throughout the Universe.

Don’t know if these are actually supposed to be Chaldean Iynges, but it will do

Why does this matter to me right now? Because I’m preparing to take part in a Fall Equinox festival dedicated to Hekate. I’ve been working with Her for many months now in preparation. And so, with this series of posts, my two Goddesses have come together for me, for now.

As you can see, the Mensa Isiaca, the Table of Isis, has been a screen upon which many have projected their thoughts for hundreds of years. Even as a Roman work of art with incomprehensible hieroglyphs, it has served as an Egyptological and esoteric inspiration. And, I think, it has also shown how things can be symbolically connected, even if that was not the original intent of the work. And though we may not be quite as invested in all ancient religions being the same as Kircher was—still—there is something beautiful and magical in the weaving of those connections.

Honestly, a meditation like Kircher’s could be very worth doing for Isis devotees. For instance, we might pick out an ancient Egyptian image of Isis (like the one at the top of this post) and, in gentle meditation, give a meaning to each and every detail, each and every color the artist used. When we do, we’ll see what connections arise for us and in us. No doubt, it won’t be exactly what the ancient Egyptians intended. But it will be a meditation of deepening and it might help us identify some of our own inner symbolism and how, for us, it connects with Isis.

*Thomas Taylor was an 18th-19th-century English translator and neoplatonist. He was the first to translate into English the complete works of Aristotle and Plato.

The Occult History of the Mensa Isiaca

Frontpiece of the oldest known treatise on the Mensa Isiaca; first edition 1605; Lorenzo put himself in the picture as the artist/scholar

Part 2

At about the time we first hear about the Mensa Isiaca, non-Egyptians were becoming increasingly fascinated with ancient Egypt. They wanted to discover what the hieroglyphs said. And because it had so many hieroglyphs, the Mensa Isiaca was one of the key sources for such early discovery.

One of earliest to take a specific interest in it was Lorenzo Pignoria, an Italian cleric, antiquarian, writer, and philosopher. In 1605, he published “An accurate explanation of the very Ancient Brazen Tablet, engraved with the Sacred Figures of the Egyptians.”

Lorenzo Pignoria

It includes a drawing of the Mensa, but apparently Pignoria was only able to identify a few of the figures and pronounced himself unable to fully unravel its secrets. Yet now a large-sized reproduction of the Mensa, in convenient paper form, was available to other researchers.

It was Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar and polymath, who really went to town on the Mensa. He believed it to be from the holy-of-holies of an Egyptian temple and to contain a wealth of mystical secrets.

Athanasius Kircher

Kircher’s personal studies spanned most of the arts and sciences of his day, from music to geology, as well as multiple languages, including Coptic. He correctly understood Coptic to be a late form of ancient Egyptian and produced a book on Coptic grammar.

While he was a devout Catholic and a biblical literalist, he also wholeheartedly embraced the Hermetic writings, no doubt influenced by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola before him. He had a keen interest in ancient Egypt and considered Egypt to be the source of all ancient religion, from Greece and Rome to China and the Americas.

Title page of Oedipus Aegyptiacus, 1654; Kircher shows himself as Oedipus solving the riddle of the Egyptian sphinx

Thus, he wanted to understand ancient Egyptian religion because he believed it was humankind’s earliest and that there were underlying harmonies in all religions. Through later, better-documented religions, he believed he could extrapolate information about the Egyptian. According to Kircher, the theologies of Zoroaster, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Proclus, the Chaldeans, and Hebrew Qabalah all had their source in ancient Egypt. He was definitely of the “all the Gods are one God” school…with that one God (eventually) being the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

His key Egyptological work is Oedipus Aegyptiacus, published in 1654. In it, he put his ideas about the connections between ancient religions and Egypt into practice and claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphs—with the Mensa Isiaca and several Egyptian obelisks (still in Rome today) assisting in this endeavor.

An illustration of Isis from the Oedipus Aegyptiacus following Apuleius’ description of the Goddess

There’s quite a lot that could be said about Kircher. His work has been derided because of how much he got wrong. Yet, studying what was available to him, he did indeed get some things right about ancient Egypt. Oedipus Aegyptiacus, along with his Coptic grammar, are now considered some of the very earliest works of Egyptology. Unfortunately, one of the things he got right wasn’t the hieroglyphs. His hieroglyphic interpretations are both highly cosmological, highly Neoplatonic, and completely wrong. It’s all quite complex and I won’t go into it here, except for what he says about Isis.

In Kircher’s Father-Son-Holy Spirit trinitarian scheme, Isis is—interestingly—the Son. Thus, She is the savior, just as she was in the the Hellenistic world. (Kircher had read his Apuleius.) In Oedipus Aegyptiacus, much of his Egyptian discussion is given under the heading, “The Temple of Isis.” By doing so, he was placing all of his Egyptian interpretations under the purview of the Goddess of Wisdom, our Lady Isis.

William Wynn Westcott, medical doctor, freemason, a founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and author of a book about the Mensa Isiaca

Since I don’t read Latin, when it comes to Kircher’s interpretations of the Mensa, I’m going to rely on W. Wynn Westcott’s translated quotes and discussion of Kircher’s text in his own book on the Mensa, The Isiac Tablet. Westcott was very much a fan of Kircher’s interpretation of the Mensa—and added his own interpretations as well.

Westcott says that the philosophy and theosophy Kircher associates with the Mensa Isiaca is almost identical with that of the Chaldean Oracles, an important text to Neoplatonists, now only known from quotes in other works. And furthermore, that it also has much in common with the Hebrew Qabalah. Here, he quotes Kircher’s explanation of the Mensa:

The universe is regulated from the Paternal Foundation through three triads; this Foundation is variously called The Iynx, Soul of the World, the Pantomorphous Redeemer, and by Philo, the Constructive Wisdom, and exists in the perfection of triads of Pater, Potentia, and Mater, or Mens, the Father, the Power, and the Mother, or Design: coexisting with Faith, Truth, and Love.

Westcott, in The Isiac Table, quoting Kircher in Oedipus Aegyptiacus
Isis, the Supreme Mind or Pantomorphous Iynx

Kircher is talking about the figure of Isis in the center of the Mensa as the Paternal Foundation. She is Isis and She is the Iynx, the Soul of the World, and the Panomorphous (All Formed) Redeemer. He goes on to say that the figures around Her are administrators of the Divine power in various spheres, such as the zodiac, the planets, and the winds.

Later, he says the central seated figure of Isis is “the Supreme Mind, or Pantomorphous Iynx Multiform Sphynx or Logos, Word, or Soul of the World, and is placed here in the middle, as in the Centre of Universal Nature.”

Isis’ enthroned posture means dominion and power; the dog on Her throne (looks more like a cat to me) is because “the Isiac Iynx is associated with the Dog Star, Sirius.” Her winged clothing “denotes the sublime velocity of the higher powers.” Each and every detail of the image is given mystical significance. (It’s a lot, so I won’t include it here. What’s more, almost every figure in the Mensa, he considers to be a form of Isis…She’s pantomorphous, after all.)

Some things he gets right. For instance, he says the disk and scarab represent the sun. Other things don’t match what we know about Egyptian symbolism, but gain meaning through Kircher’s mystical exercise. For instance, the alternating black and white stripes on the lotus-form columns represent the ups and downs of earthly life, which Isis as “the mother of Universal Nature” rules.

All in all, Kircher’s decoding of the Mensa Isiaca reveals cosmic Mysteries containing the Wisdom of the Egyptians, with Isis in Her many forms guiding and controlling the multifaceted Universe throughout.

The importance Kircher gives to Isis, and his ongoing influence, especially in esoterica, is one of the keys that helps us understand why Isis continued to be such an integral part of the western spiritual imagination. Through works such as Kircher’s, She remained an important part of the Western Mystery Tradition.

Well, I’m at the end of this post and we’re still not quite to the end of this exploration of the Mensa. I thought I’d be able to do it in two, but it looks like three will be the charm. So next time we’ll look at what some other historians and occultists had to say about the Mensa. And I’ll tell you about a weird synchronicity that happened for me in relation to these posts.

The central register of the Mensa Isiaca with Isis enthroned

She is Rising 2023

For me, there are two things that make August wonderful, here in Portland, Oregon. One of them is all the produce that I can go pick on Sauvie’s Island, fresh from the farmers’ fields. (My countertops are full of peaches and tomatoes right now and peppers are on the way.) The other—and the more important for us local Isiacs—is the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis, Sirius.

While everything else starts to crisp in the late-summer heat, I am refreshed in the cool morning of Her rising power.

Now some of you may be saying, “wait, wait, I thought that happens in July.” It could. When you are able to see Her heliacal (“before the sun”) rising depends on where on this globe you are.

Here in Portland, Oregon in 2023, Sirius rises at 4:31 in the morning, Local Solar Time, on August 23rd. Further south, She rises earlier. It all depends on your latitude. You can calculate Her rising in your area with this online calculator. The calculator results are in Local Solar Time. It gives you star rise and sun rise in LST.

One of my favorite tarot images: Isis as The Star in the Ancient Egyptian Tarot by Clive Barrett

There is some difference between clock time and Local Solar Time. But check the time of sunrise locally and you can work backward from there. In my case, I’ll want to be at my point of observation about 5:30 in the morning, about an hour before local sunrise. And this year, for once, it may be clear enough to see Her rise.

While Isis has connections to both the sun and the moon, the heavenly body in which I most easily see Her is the star, Her star: Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek). And it isn’t just because of Her strong ancient connections with the Fair Star of the Waters, the Herald of the Inundation. It’s something about the way my particular spiritual “stuff” fits with Her particular Divine “stuff.” Her diamond starlight draws me, lures me, illuminates my heart and mind.

The Star of Isis is at its highest point in the night sky right now
The Star of Isis, coming soon to a dawn near me

I fell in love with Her as Lady of the Star the first time I saw Sirius through a telescope. As I watched, Her brilliant star sparkled with rays of green and blue and pink and white. It was incredibly, unutterably beautiful. It was alive. And pure.

Likely, you already know why Sirius was important to the ancient Egyptians, so I won’t repeat that here. But I would like to add a few interesting bits about Sirius that you may not know about; in particular, the orientation of some Egyptian temples and shrines to Sirius at the time of their construction. For instance, the small Isis temple at Denderah and Isis’ great temple at Philae seem to have been oriented toward the rising of Sirius. Philae may even have a double stellar orientation: one axis to the rising of Sirius, one to the setting of Canopus.

Iset-Sopdet following Sah-Osiris in Their celestial boats
Iset-Sopdet following Sah-Osiris in Their celestial boats

Overall, Egyptian temples have a variety of orientations. A survey of temples taken between 2004 and 2008—that actually went to the temples in Egypt and measured the orientation—showed that most temples were oriented so that the main entrance faced the Nile. But not only that. It seems that the temples were also oriented toward other astronomical events, most especially the winter solstice sunrise, which of course makes very good sense as a symbol of rebirth.

Orientation to Sirius is rarer and harder to be certain of since the earth’s position in relation to the stars has shifted over the millennia.

A Horus temple, called the “Nest of Horus” on the summit of the highest peak of the Hills of Thebes, seems to have been oriented to the heliacal rising of Sirius around 3000-2000 BCE. Nearby, an inscription carved in rock during the 17th dynasty (1580-1550 BCE) records the observation of just such a rising of Sirius. This high place would have been ideal for Horus in His nest to await the coming of His mother Isis. On the other hand, the archaeoastronomers who did the survey I mentioned believe that it may also be oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, an event closely associated with Horus.

The original temple of Satet on Elephantine; made of mudbrick nestled among the natural boulders

Another temple that may have a Sirius orientation is the archaic temple of the Goddess Satet on the island of Elephantine. The original temple was built amidst the great boulders on the island and really is quite simply the coolest temple ever. It seems that when it was built (around 3200 BCE) the rising of Sirius and the rising of the winter solstice sun were at the same place—so it could have been built to accommodate both important astronomical events.

After the initial study, the same team followed up with a survey (in 2008) of some temples in the Fayum that they hadn’t been able to study before as well as temples in Kush. They found generally the same results except for the Nile orientation since many of these temples were built far away from the river. They made note of a son of a Priest of Isis, Wayekiye, son of Hornakhtyotef, who was “hont-priest of Sopdet” and ”wab-priest of the five living stars” (the planets) and “chief magician of the King of Kush.” This is from an inscription on Isis’ temple at Philae dating to about 227 CE. It emphasizes the importance and sacrality of the study of celestial objects and events to the kingdom and it is quite interesting that this was the work of the Chief Magician. This study revealed that most Kushite temples and pyramids were oriented either to the winter solstice sunrise or the rise of Sirius.

Sopdet rising
The star Sopdet over the head of the Goddess

Another interesting thing the study found was that by the time of the New Kingdom, in the 34 temples that were unmistakably dedicated to a Goddess—specifically Isis or a Goddess associated with Her—the most important celestial orientation point was the rising of Sirius. But, in addition to Sirius, the star Canopus was also a key orientation point. According to their data, Goddess temples in general were more frequently aligned with these very bright stars, Sirius and Canopus, while God temples were more often oriented to key solar-cycle events. Isn’t that interesting?

On the horizon, She rises, with Orion/Osiris above

If you are, as I am, feeling the anticipation of Her rising later this month, you might like to do some ritual. The Opening of the Ways is always good. You could use it as an invitation to Her. Or try a simple meditation, allowing yourself to yearn for Her coming. Waiting for Her and wanting Her is sometimes a very good exercise. You might set out a vessel of water (a shiny silver one is nice) on the night of Her rising, let it be charged with that rising energy in the dawn, then use it as part of your holy water for purification. I have just such star water that I use waiting in my shrine right now.

Isis & the Soul, Pt 2

A beautiful, bronze ba statue

Last time, we talked about the Egyptian ba—very loosely translated as the soul. When represented in tombs, the ba is shown as a human-headed bird, often a falcon or hawk, and bearing the face of the person to whom it belongs.

With their power of flight, birds have always been magical creatures to us flightless human beings. Not only in Egypt, but in many cultures throughout the world, birds of various types have been associated with death and the afterlife. In some cases, birds (especially the owl) are seen as harbingers of death. Sometimes, birds are psychopomps, guides of the dead, showing the newly-disembodied human soul or spirit the correct path to the Otherworld. Researchers have suggested that the concept of birds as spirits of the dead that have returned to earth is almost universal.

Tutankhamon’s innermost sarcophagus, aka “the egg”

But more often than being harbingers of death, birds are associated with the idea of transcendence and rebirth, as they decidedly were in ancient Egypt. The innermost coffin was sometimes referred to as “the egg,” so you can see the power of this idea almost immediately. In the funerary literature, we also find birds in connection with the so-called “transformation” spells, which are designated in the texts by the verb kheper, “to become.” So once again, we come to that important word.

Two forms of Isis from Denderah: anthropomorphic and in Her Ba form

As you already know, our Goddess Isis is often depicted in birdform. She is the hawk, falcon, kestral, or swallow protecting the body of Osiris, and thus all the dead, with Her powerful wings. But sometimes, She is also shown as a human-headed falcon. In this case, we are being shown Her powerful ba kheper. If you recall last week’s post, you’ll remember that in the earliest Egyptian records, the ba is a Divine Force. That Divine Force is what we are intended to see when we find Isis in this form. It is Her Great Ba that is with us.

From an inscription at Denderah, we are told that Isis is “She Whose Ba (-Power) is Great” and “She Whose Ba is Great Among the Gods,” and even “She Whose Ba is Greater Than All the Gods.” Human beings recognize the power of Her ba: “those on earth bow to Her Ba.” (And, it is often the ba of the Deity that was understood to inhabit the Deity’s sacred image; sometimes the ka, too, but mostly the ba.)

Isis is also among the Great Goddesses Who are called Ba-et Goddesses. As a Ba-et Goddess, Isis’ ba-power is understood to be exceptionally powerful among the bau (plural) of all the other Deities. Isis is “She Who is More Mighty (Ba-et) than the Gods.” She is especially powerful in the sky: She is “The Mighty One (Ba-et) in the Sky,” “The Mighty One in the West and the East,” and She is “The Mighty One of the Bau Souls.”

I don’t know how to attribute these AI illos, but this one gets something of Her power; here’s the link

This last title likely refers to Isis’ status among the Deities—a Great Ba among Great Bau. But I wonder if we might also take it as a reference to Her care of the human bau, souls, who are under Her wings.

It is Isis Who initiates the human ba into its new, transformed existence without the living body of the deceased. She is the Lady of All in the Secret Place—the Otherworld—and She is asked by the deceased in the Coffin Texts to, “spiritualize me, O You who split open my mouth for me and Who guide my soul on the paths of the Otherworld.” We are told that “Isis rejoices when She sees you (the deceased)” in the Otherworld and reciprocally, that the dead (as Osiris) rejoice when they see Her, for they know they can count on Her help in their renewal.

Isis in protective posture

Isis also bestows upon the deceased power and awe so that enemies of the deceased are easily fended off. The dead are told that they are possessors of “the fear (awe or power) that went forth from Isis to Horus.” While the texts do not explicitly say so, it seems to me that Isis may have endowed the deceased with some of Her powerful and “awe-full” ba-power. In another Coffin Text, the deceased is told that “the power of Isis is your strength” and that the dead one is “more spirit (akh)-like and more soul (ba)-like” than the Southern or Northern Gods.

From Pompeii, a Mystery fresco

Isis’ concern with souls continued as Her worship entered the Graeco-Roman world. She becomes known as a Mystery Goddess—and the Mysteries were always about the Mysteries of death, rebirth, and often, the saving of souls. In Isis’ famous Mysteries, initiates learned what lay before them in the afterlife so that they lost their fear of death and could live more fulfilling lives on earth. In fact, Isis was specifically known as a Savior Goddess, which not only pertains to Her ability to initiate our souls into the Mysteries of Death and Rebirth, but also to Her saving grace in our day-to-day lives.

In a Hermetic treatise, the Kore Kosmou (“Virgin of the Universe”), Isis continued to be associated with souls. (Read more about the Kore Kosmou here, and here, and here.)

The always Mysterious sphinx

In this text, Isis describes for Horus how human souls were created and how She and Osiris devised the “magic of the prophet-priests” so that our souls could be nurtured by philosophy and our bodies could be healed by the magical arts. Other Hermetic texts depict Isis teaching about reincarnation and the true nature of our souls.

From the earliest to the latest periods, Isis has been the Lady of Souls. She has, and is, an extremely powerful ba Herself and always, always maintains Her concern with and knowledge of souls.

Horus’ Twin Sister

I’m taking the holiday weekend off, so here’s a repost of what I think is an important connection.

Warning: this post refers to rape in myth.

Boy and girl Divine Children, enwrapped in the protective coils of Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathos Daimon

During the excavation of Hathor’s temple at Denderah, an interesting statue, now in the Cairo Museum, came to light. It shows two children, one male, one female, standing within the protective coils of two serpents. On the boy’s head is a solar disk with an Eye of Horus on it. The girl has a lunar disk with an Eye of Horus.

The statue appears to be a votive gift, and may have originally come from the shrine of Isis-Thermouthis, believed to be not far from Denderah. According to experts, the serpents are most likely Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathos Daimon.

Isis as Agathe Tyche and Osiris as Agathos Daimon in serpent form

In the Ptolemaic period, Isis and Serapis/Osiris were frequently depicted as Divine Serpents. The Isis serpent can sometimes be the combined Goddesses Isis and Renenutet as Isis-Thermouthis. Other times, She can be Isis Agathe Tyche, Good Fortune. In both forms, She is partnered with Serapis/Osiris Agathos Daimon, or Good Spirit.

Unfortunately, there is no writing on the statue to help with the identification of the Divine Children. One possibility is that They are the well-known twins, Shu and Tefnut. There are things in myth and at the site that could support this interpretation. But as you might guess, I like a different possibility.

Harpokrates with Mom Isis and Dad Serapis

The male child has the Horus lock, so He is probably Harpokrates, in Egyptian Hor-pa-khred, Horus the Child. Harpokrates was very popular during this time period. He is the child of Isis and Serapis and is frequently shown with a sun disk on His head. The fact that the Child God is protected by Isis and Osiris serpents, strengthens the identification. But if the boy is Harpokrates, Who is the little girl?

We don’t know of a twin sister of Harpokrates from either Egyptian or Greek sources. Some have wondered whether the lunar girl is supposed to be a form of Isis. Indeed Isis is called the Female Horus (Hor-et or Horit) in Egyptian sources. Several other Goddesses and a number of queens are called by the name as well. The Oxyrhynchus Hymn to Isis, written in Greek, calls Her Harpokratin, which is just Harpokrates with the Greek feminine ending. Translators have taken this to mean something like “the darling-girl of the Gods,” but it can just as easily be simply “Horet the [Girl] Child.” What’s more, by Ptolemaic times, Isis was indeed connected to the moon, even though She was not in earlier Egyptian sources.

Nevertheless, I stubbornly like the idea that the Divine Girl could be Horus’ twin sister, Horet. While this is the only statue we know of that shows the Harpokrates Twins together, during the Ptolemaic period, there are a few other baby girl statues that have been identified as Girl Harpokrates. We have no evidence of Her before this time, but we know that the Egyptians always did have a penchant for name-sharing male-female pairs of Deities, such as the Deities of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis.

Horus or Horit? Love this image? Buy a copy from the artist here.

Now, there is a Goddess Horit Who shows up in late Egyptian sources, specifically in what is known as the Delta Mythological Manual. Scholars aren’t sure where the manual came from, but they date it to about the 26th dynasty—though the material may be much older. It contains myths having to do with 12 of the nomes in the Egyptian delta. It could have come from a temple cache or been in the possession of a priest or maybe even a priestess. In this manual, we meet Horit. She is a daughter of Osiris, but we do not know Who Her mother is.

And…then things get bad.

You see, Horit bears sons fathered by Her father Osiris. The Delta Manual is pretty darned cryptic, but we learn that when Her father raped Her, it was Her “first time” and that when She learned She was pregnant, She “sat down and mourned.” What’s more, there was something wrong or unusual about the birth of the resulting child. The text isn’t super clear, but Horit may have either chosen abortion or miscarried. The child, being Divine, did not die, but instead left the premises immediately.

Tefnut in Her lioness form

After this, Horit functions as a wife to Osiris and bears four more children, the last one after suffering a rape by Set. The manual (again very cryptically) tells stories about each of these sons of Horit—all forms of Horus. Strangely, there is even one called The Child of Isis. Of the third of these sons, the manual tells us that after Set murders Osiris, Horit raises Their son to be His father’s avenger; very Isis-like indeed. There is even an incident of decapitation just as there is in the story where Isis grants mercy to Set, which so enrages Horus (the two Gods are battling at the time) that He decapitates Isis, a state of affairs that wise Thoth fixes right away.

In the Delta Manual, the identities of all the Goddesses are very fluid; quite confusingly so. They are associated, joined, or become each other frequently. Horit is identified with Hathor and it is said that “She is the Divine hand of Re,” which is specifically a vagina. (In this version of the story, Re replaces Atum Who uses His Goddess-Hand to masturbate, producing Shu and Tefnut.)

Tefnut is not happy

Many of the myths in the Delta Manual, and most of Horit’s, have to do with boundary-crossing sex among Deities, consensual or not. In addition to Hathor, Horit is associated with Bast, Who is said to “come forth as Horit.” At Sebennytos and Behbeit (Isiopolis!), Horit is joined with Tefnut and the myth of the Raging/Distant/Returning Goddess (which is an important myth for another day). Sebennytos and Behbeit are in the 12th delta nome. There, the myths relate that Tefnut-Horit is raped by Her son Geb and imprisoned. The rapist is eventually punished and the Goddess freed, which becomes a cause for festival in the nome. So now, in addition to the rape of Horit the daughter by Her father Osiris, we also have the rape of Horit-Tefnut the mother by Her son. Some of you may know that there is similar tale in which Horus rapes His mother Isis and Her tears fall into the water.

WTF? Is it any wonder that Horit is among the raging Goddesses? And what the heck are we to supposed to make of all this anyway? We certainly do not approve. But neither did the ancient Egyptians. After all, Geb (and Set in other tales) is punished for His rape. And yet, the Egyptians retained these stories and, no doubt, tried to make sense of them.

Goddess and Son? God and Daughter?

I have speculated, in Isis Magic, about the possible meaning of the rape of Isis by Her son. It goes like this: What if that story, and others like it, are merely the very misunderstood remnants of a different and very ancient story; indeed, perhaps the oldest story? The Goddess Comes Into Being; of Herself, by Herself. She gives birth to a Child, a son. He grows to maturity. Then, in order to start the multiplication of life on earth, Divine Mother and Divine Son mate, not in a rape, but because They are All That Is. Could the same be said of the Divine Father and Divine Daughter? Obviously, I don’t know the answer to these questions. But it’s a way I can try to make it make some sense in my own head.

As for Harpokrates and His twin sister, I doubt we can make a direct connection between Horit and the Girl Harpokrates of the votive statue. And yet, and yet, and yet. Osiris has a son, Hor, and a daughter, Horit. (Different mothers? Same mother?) Hor and Horit make a perfect Egyptian name-sharing male-female pair. Horit’s myths come from the delta, including from Behbeit, where Isis’ great delta temple once stood.

I wonder whether we will some day find stories about Horit and Her mother? And if we do, what will Her name be?

Iset Demdjet, Isis the Bone Collector

Bone Woman, Crone Woman by Joan Riise. Find her work here.

We know quite a lot about the history of the Great Goddess Isis. For instance, we know that She was already important by the time of the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, 5th-6th dynasties). We know fairly clearly how Her worship spread throughout Egypt. We know how She came into Nubia and the Mediterranean. And we know how She went underground with the rise of Christianity in the Mediterranean and the West…staying alive in the magical traditions. Today there are few who do not at least know Her name.

Yet, what we don’t know for certain is where Her worship originated. So far, it is one of Her Mysteries.

Oh, there are theories. The one I am most seeing lately is that She is originally from some small city in the Egyptian delta of Lower Egypt. But strangely, no town in ancient Egypt, Upper or Lower, claimed to be Her “birthplace.” Since She became Egypt’s most famous Goddess, you would think someone would claim Her as their own.

The Egyptian delta. The arrow points to the location of Isiopolis. You can see Heliopolis above Cairo (Caire).

Others attribute Upper Egyptian origins to Her, especially given Her important Upper Egyptian temple at Philae (now on Agilkia island). However, the oldest evidence we have of Isis worship on Philae is from the 26th dynasty.

On the other hand, the consensus of researchers today is that what would become ancient Egypt was first populated by Paleolithic people moving from south to north. So if proto-Isis was already known to these people, perhaps She did come from what would eventually be Upper Egypt. And Abydos, an important Osirian cult center, is in Upper Egypt.

On the other, other hand, Isis and Osiris are incorporated into the Heliopolitan myth cycle. And Heliopolis is about 20 miles north of Cairo and in the delta. What’s more, there was another famous Isis temple right there in the middle of the delta at Isiopolis. We may eventually find that it (or its predecessor on the site) is, in fact, the oldest temple of Isis. (Yes, of course, I asked Her. She told me, “delta.” But that is decidedly UPG, “unverified personal gnosis.”)

Some very pretty skulls and bones from an Egyptian tomb

I recently came across a paper by Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond, an Egyptologist serving as Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department at Villanova University, that makes a new and interesting contribution to the possible origins of Isis. She focuses in on the title of a female funerary ritualist. The title is “demdjet” and the demdjet can appear as a human ritualist, but also sometimes as a Divine ritualist. We find her—very infrequently—from the Old Kingdom to the New. Egyptologists used to group this particular ritualist under the general category of “mourning women,” but it appears the demdjet or Demdjet may have had a more specific function.

The root of the word has to do with collecting or assembling. And since the title is a feminine active participle, the title demdjet is “she who collects or assembles.” If you’re at all familiar with the ancient Egyptian funerary texts, you may recall that there is quite a lot of emphasis on making sure the deceased have all their bones, bits, limbs, heads, etc. collected or assembled for them as well as ensuring none of those things are disassembled or lost. Since Isis is the collector of bits and pieces par excellence—at least when it comes to Osiris (and thus the deceased)—Diamond suggests that this ritual role may play a part in Isis’ origins.

The demdjet (top) and the kenut (bottom) offering nu pots

One of the Pyramid Texts (PT 2283) refers to a Demdjet Vulture. It says, “Osiris Neith, accept Horus’ Eye, which Seth hid—THE HIDDEN VULTURE, which he joined—THE JOINED [Demdjet] VULTURE…” This Demdjet Vulture is involved with stretching or spreading something. We cannot say whether the Demdjet Vulture is supposed to be Isis, but at least we may have an early attestation of a Divine Demdjet. Of course, Isis can take vulture form, but it is not Her most common bird form. Yet, as a winged Goddess, She is often shown stretching or spreading Her wings over the deceased.

We also find the Demdjet in the pyramid temple of Senwosret III where She gives life and protection. From the Middle Kingdom, there are demdjets in the papyrus Ramesseum E. Some scholars think that the contents of that papyrus may date back to the 3rd dynasty (there are archaisms in the text). If true, it would be the oldest mention of a demdjet.

In this papyrus, we learn that the demdjets are present throughout the funerary rites. At some point, the demdjets move simultaneously, perhaps in ritual motion or dance. They are there when the deceased is summoned to revivification. And they have speaking parts. In the New Kingdom, we have several more instances of demdjets. They are shown as two kneeling women with nu water pots and they are watering “the desert necropolis.” In one case, one woman is labeled menkenu and one demdjet. (Alan Gardiner suggests menkenu is a title of Isis, while demdjet is a title of Nephthys.) In another case, one is called demdjet and one is called kenut (menkenu and kenut may be different versions of the same title).

Same offering, different labels: The Great Kite and the Lesser Kite

But here’s where it gets more interesting for Isiacs. In the last New Kingdom example (tomb of Paheri, if you must know), we find the same scene—women kneeling with nu pots, dressed in the same way—but this time, They are labeled Djeret Weret (Great Kite) and Djeret Nedjeset (Lesser Kite). In this time period, we know Who the Great Kite and the Lesser Kite are; They are Isis and Nephthys. So, the women depicted may be human ritualists portraying the Goddesses, which we know was done in Egyptian ritual. In additional—but very damaged—scenes in two of these tombs, we see the demdjet no longer kneeling, but standing with her/Her right arm raised, elbow bent, and fist clenched while her/Her left clenched fist is placed at her/Her chest. It reminds me of the henu gesture, but standing.

The henu gesture

She is labeled Djeret Weret Demdjet, the Great Kite Demdjet. The gesture s/She makes is thought to be associated with transfiguration, the recitation of holy words, and glorifications for the dead.

In the Book of the Amduat, a Goddess named Demdjet appears in the 7th and 8th Hours of the Night where She helps protect Re and the Sun Barque as it journeys through the Otherworld. In the 7th Hour, She is with three other Goddesses: She Who Cuts, She Who Punishes, and She Who Annihilates. In the 8th Hour, Demdjet is with three other mummiform Goddesses: She Who Veils, She Who Decorates (?), and the Dark One. Interestingly, the 7th Hour is the same Hour in which Isis and the Elder Magician work Their powerful magic to subdue Apophis. So in this case, with Isis in Her Great of Magic form, it seems to me it would be a bit of a stretch to consider this Demdjet, a minor Hours Goddess, to be a form of Isis.

The Djeret Weret Demdjet making a gesture of transfiguration; we can see the feet of (probably) another demdjet (the Djeret Nedjeset Demdjet?) above this one, but this part of the tomb is damaged.

Nevertheless, with its core meaning of She Who Collects, Assembles, and Puts Together, we can find in the Demdjet an important harmony with one aspect of Great Isis: She Who searches, finds, reassembles, and gives new life to Osiris.

Some researchers have suggested that there may have been a very early Egyptian funerary custom in which important dead persons were disarticulated and then put back together for rejuvenation. It’s a highly controversial topic, but if so, perhaps the original Demdjet may have been the female ritualist who did this reassembly. Perhaps she was serving as a priestess of the Great Renewing Mother. And perhaps, just perhaps, this Great Mother Regeneratrix was the Demdjet Weret—(proto) Iset Demdjet—She Who collects our bones for us that we may be made whole in preparation for our rebirth.

A Summer Solstice Isis Rite

We’re not quite there yet, but I thought you might like to have this small rite early in case you’d like to find a special outdoor place to celebrate the coming solstice.

In Egypt, about 3000 BCE, at the latitude of ancient Memphis, the summer solstice coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the star of Isis, the beginning of the all-important inundation, and the coming of the new year. It was a time of joy as people anticipated the coming harvest and other blessings from the Divine Ones.

In this rite, we celebrate with gratitude the fullness of summer in the dawning light of our closest star, the sun. Yet we also know that the ba of Isis—in Her holy star Sirius—is also present with us, though still unseen by most of us in the northern hemisphere.

The summer solstice sunset at Karnak temple

And, of course, Isis is a Sun Goddess, too.

Stuff You’ll Need

For this rite, you’ll need Nile water and a vessel, a flowery incense and something to safely burn it in, your sistrum, and a ripe avocado or sweet, juicy fruit like a peach, and something to cut it with. You’ll be eating the fruit in offering communion with Her, so make it something you like.

Your Temple Space

Ideally, this is an outdoor space where you can see the sun rise on summer solstice. Make sure you arrive before sunrise. If not possible, you can also do this indoors, visualizing the sunrise.

Arising

Rattle your sistrum softly at your heart. As you see the sun rise, stand and open your arms like the wings of Isis.

Ritualist: (Vibrating softly) ISET-RE, ISET-SOPDET! (Speaking softly) I welcome You with open heart into Your abode (moving your hands to cross upon your heart).

Purifying the Heart

Pour the Nile water into the vessel. Sprinkle water upon your own body, paying special attention to your heart.

Ritualist: Purify, purify, purify, purify! I am purified by the Mother of Rivers, the Lady of the Living Waters. Into Her care I release al pain, all anger, all frustration, all regret—all the sorrows of my heart. (Breathe deeply and repeat until you feel that it is so.)

The temple of my heart is made new, purified and opened unto Isis, the Lady of Abundance.

Awakening the Heart

Take up the sistrum again, light the incense. Rattling the sistrum softly at your heart (so much the better if you can feel the vibrations of the sistrum), say,

Ritualist: In the name of Isis-Re, in the name of Isis-Sothis, my heart awakens. (Breathe deeply and repeat until you feel that it is so.)

Be seated comfortably. Now listen and hear. Listen to the dawn and find the heartbeat of the Great Goddess Isis. Her noble heart beats all around you. In the awakening song of birds. In the wind moving through grass and trees. In the waters. In the deep earth.

Find the heartbeat of Isis.

Now, touch a pulse point on your own body and find your heartbeat.

Attune your heartbeat to Hers, slowing or speeding up as needed. (Just do the best you can; it doesn’t have to be perfect.)

Ritualist: (Speaking softly to yourself and to the Goddess) Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart.

I am aware in my heart. I am in power in my heart. I am aware and in power in my heart, which is the heart given to me by my mother (stating the name of your human mother)—and by my Great Mother Isis. 

Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart.

I am intelligent in my heart. I am compassionate in my heart. I am intelligent and compassionate in my heart, which is the heart which drums in rhythm with the heart of Great Isis.

Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart.

I am alive in my heart. I am full in my heart. I am alive and full in my heart, the center of all Being, the beginning of all Becoming. I am alive and full in my heart, and my heart knows all the joys and pleasures of my life. 

In the fullness of my Being, I am Becoming joyful. Isis arises—all is well. Isis comes—peace returns. I am sitting in the Throne of Abundance. Once again, I attune my human heart to Her Divine heart (pausing to do this). 

Now speak aloud at least ten things for which you are grateful. If you can name more than that, do so. Let yourself feel joy, satisfaction, pleasure, or pleasant surprise as you name each thing. Take time to re-attune your heart to the Goddess’ heart between each thanksgiving. When you are finished, continue:

Ritualist: Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart. I am aware in my heart and I am grateful in my heart. You have blessed me, Isis, and I bless You. Amma, Iset. Grant that it ever be so.

Communion of the Heart of Isis

Take out the avocado (or other fruit) and look upon it.

Ritualist: This fruit is the fruit of the holy persea tree, sacred unto Isis. It is the fruit of the tree from between whose branches rises the Soul of Isis—Sothis—and the Face of Isis—the Sun. The wise say that the sacred persea bears the Heart of Isis (elevating fruit), therefore when I hold this persea fruit in my hands, I hold the Heart of the Goddess. Rich and sweet, the persea fruit is indeed the Heart of the Beautiful One, the Heart of Abundant Summer.

Cut the fruit into five pieces and lay them upon the altar like the five-rayed Star of Isis.

Ritualist: O Isis-Re, O Isis-Sothis, You shared with me Your sacred heart (eating one piece of fruit). Spirit is joined to spirit (eating another piece of fruit). Mind is joined to mind (eating another piece of fruit).  Soul is joined to soul (eating another piece of fruit). Body is joined to body (eating the last piece of fruit). Heart joined to heart (crossing your hands over your heart).

Closing

Take up the sistrum and, beginning at your heart, rattle it in the four directions, above you and below you.

Ritualist: O Isis, You have filled my heart. You are indeed the Lady of Abundance.

Take up the vessel of water. Holding it at your heart, sprinkle water in the four directions, above you and below you.

Ritualist: O Isis, I ask that my heart remain open to Your heart, this day and every day. Amma, Iset. Grant that it be so.

Face east and the rising sun and the hidden star. Open your arms like the wings of Isis, then close them over your heart. Remove all traces of your presence, then depart in peace.

NOTE: This is a shortened version of the summer solstice rite from Isis Magic. For the more complete rite, see pages 344-351 in the second edition.

Magical Images & Isis

A female image in ivory from the early predynastic period in Badari
A female image in hippopotamus ivory from the early predynastic period from Badari

As with so many things in Egyptology, there’s controversy surrounding the many female figurines that have been found throughout Egypt and spanning its long history.

These figurines take several forms. Some are standing females, usually nude with sexual characteristics emphasized (eyes, breasts, vulva). Some are abstracted into what have been called “paddle dolls”; more on them shortly. Some show a woman lying on a bed, often with a baby or child beside her. Others show a woman nursing a child.

The old gentlemen of early Egyptology initially guessed that the nude females and paddle dolls—some of them found in tombs—were “spirit concubines” for deceased Egyptian men. Because of course they did. However, the fact that they have been found in the tombs of women and children, too, throws a significant monkey wrench into that interpretation.

There’s also the more modern controversy about whether ancient female figurines should be interpreted as images of Goddesses or even as representations of an all-encompassing Mother Goddess. In opposition are those who regard the figures as devoid of divinity altogether and more likely to have been toys, ancestor figures, tools for sex instruction, or as mentioned above, the ever-popular post mortum concubines.

A Second Intermediate Period image
A Second Intermediate Period image

While the idea of a singular worldwide Goddess cult goes farther than strict interpretation of the evidence can take us (and, in fact, that is not what most proponents of the Goddess interpretation claim), the virulence of the opposition makes me question its objectivity as well. The truth is, we just don’t know. We have no ancient texts explaining these figures for us. Yet, at the very least, the ubiquity of the female figurines as well as their greater numbers in comparison to extant male figurines indicates a keen interest in the feminine by our ancient siblings.

Female figurines in Egypt

These images are also commonly interpreted as general “fertility symbols.” This makes sense due to the emphasized sexual characteristics of many figurines and the connection with the child in others, as well as the fact that a number of them seem to have been given as votive offerings to the Great Goddess Hathor, one of Whose concerns is fertility. Hathor also received what one Egyptologist described as “basketsful” of clay phalluses.

Another cache of these images that has received study come from the temple precinct of the Great Mother Mut. Of the small handful of votive images that include inscriptions, all are requests for children. In addition to temples and tombs, these figures have also been found in ancient homes and in domestic shrine settings.

19th dynasty image of a woman and child on a bed
19th dynasty image of a woman and child on a bed

Many modern Egyptologists have come to the consensus that the female figurines are symbols of fertility in its the broadest sense, which includes the ideas of general health and well-being, rebirth and regeneration—in addition to concerns with human reproduction.

There are some other interesting ideas as well. One that I hadn’t come across before is the idea that the paddle dolls are related to a specific type of royal and sacred musicians and dancers.

Paddle dolls

Paddle dolls are flat images with truncated arms, no legs, an emphasized vulva, decorative painting on the body, big hair—and sometimes no head, just a large mop of beaded hair. (See more on the magical importance of Isis’ hair here.) They were first called paddle dolls because of the flat, paddle-like body shape and dolls because they were thought to be toys; some even looked to the archeologists like they had been played with by a child. The largest number of paddle dolls have been excavated from the cemeteries around Thebes in Egypt.

One of the big-haired paddle dolls with emphasized vulva
One of the big-haired paddle dolls with emphasized vulva

In a paper on the subject, Ellen F. Morris follows a variety of interesting lines of evidence to conclude that the paddle dolls were meant to be representations of the khener-women. Members of the khener were once thought to be part of the pharaoh’s harim, but now are understood to have been skilled and respected musicians and dancers.

Married women and men could also be part of a khener. The khener could be connected to the royal household, to temples of the Deities, and to mortuary temples. When associated with the temples, it seems reasonable to think of them as priest/esses of music and dance.

The story of the birth of the three kings told in the Westcar Papyrus indicates that the women of the khener might also serve as midwives. In this tale, Isis, Nephthys, Heqet, Meshkhenet, and Khumn are specifically said to be disguised as a khener when They deliver the three children of Reddjedet. By the time of the New Kingdom, we know that a khener was part of the worship of Isis.

On several of the paddle dolls and on a number of examples of the female figurines, cross-shaped marks were found on the upper body. Some researchers have correlated these cross marks to similar cross marks seen on the bodies of partially nude female mourners in some New Kingdom tomb paintings. In some of these, two of the mourners are specifically identified as Isis and Nephthys. Scholars have theorized that the partial nudity may refer to Isis’ use of Her arousing sexuality to help bring Osiris back to life. This strengthens the argument that at least some of the female figurines were tools of resurrection, imbued with the arousing power of Isis. This ability of the nude or partially nude figures to induce (male, heterosexual) arousal may hold a key to the reason why they may be considered fertility figures. For potency—in life or after life—the male must be aroused and the female must arouse him.

A particularly beautiful 12th dynasty image from Thebes
A particularly beautiful 12th dynasty image from Thebes

Magical images

There are other possible uses for these figurines as well. Some researchers have suggested that they were purposely generic so that they could be assigned magical roles as need be. Healing seems to have been a common use. We have a ritual text that instructs the sufferer to recite a particular spell “over a woman’s statue of clay.” The spell, in the Leiden Papyrus (3rd century CE), is to cure a bellyache. Once the spell is spoken, the papyrus says that “the affliction will be sent down from him into the Isis-statue until he is healed.” (Would you like that in Egyptian? It is repyt Iset, “a female image of Isis.”)

We also find images of Isis used in relation to healing from snakebite. A spell in the Turin Papyrus (First Intermediate Period) instructs the ritualist to use “this clay of Isis that has come forth from under the armpit of Selket” to ward off a snake. In this case the spellworker is to enclose a knife and a particular herb within the clay. We can’t be completely sure whether the “clay of Isis” was in the form of Isis or used to form an image of the Goddess. Some scholars think that it likely was in the form of the Goddess and that the spell in full should read “this clay figure of Isis.”

A Ptolemaic beeswax image of one of the sons or Horus
A Ptolemaic beeswax image of one of the sons or Horus

In addition to clay, magic workers also used beeswax to form their magical images. Figurines made of beeswax are known from the magical papyri and, in specific relation to Isis, from Diodorus Siculus (1.21, 5-6). He says that the Goddess used wax to create multiple figures of Osiris, which She then gave into the keeping of priests throughout Egypt so that Osiris could be buried in locations throughout the land and thus to be widely honored.

A number of the female figurines we’ve found are broken. Originally this was thought to have been accidental. Now scholars are more inclined to think the state is purposeful. Why? Well, if they were being used in healing spells like the one in which the bellyache “went down into” the Isis statue, then to keep the bellyache from returning, it would be reasonable to break the image, permanently obliterating the bellyache with it. Modern magic workers often do the same sort of thing. Once the magic is accomplished, the talisman is dismantled, de-charged, or destroyed.

One of the books I’ve been reading on this conjectures that, given Her role in healing and protection, many of the generic female images may have been used specifically as Isis figures. The image “became” Isis with the recitation of the spell. The crude fashioning of many of the images is to be explained by the fact that, in many cases, they were intended to be disposable. Once broken and disposed, the images were no longer Isis, but simply a container for the affliction.

A copper image from the Middle Kingdom now in Berlin; an inscriptions identifies it as Isis nursing Horus
A copper image from the Middle Kingdom now in Berlin; an inscription identifies it as Isis nursing Horus

Images of the nursing woman

The female figure of a woman nursing an infant is easily seen as Isis nursing Horus. Stephanie Budin argues, however, that we should not understand this specifically as Isis and Horus until the late New Kingdom. Before that time, the image reflected a variety of Divine Wet Nurses nourishing the king.

She also discusses the fascinating idea that images such as the nursing woman—as well as the other female figurines we have been discussing—might have been used to intensify magic and prayers. She refers to them as “potency figures.” (This idea is also discussed by Elizabeth Waraksa, who has studied these images from the Mut temple.) In other words, the images were a kind of magical battery that empowered the ritual.

I like this idea very much. It’s also excellent magical practice. Modern priest/ess magicians would call it adding “correspondences” to the rite. Colors, stones, herbs, and symbols that relate to the ritual purpose can be used to help the magic worker “tune in” to the divine powers that can assist in accomplishing the magic of the rite. In the case of the nursing woman images, our ancient Egyptian might be tuning in to the nurturing or protective powers of Isis.

Budin also suggests that, alternatively, the nursing-woman images (for example, the one now in Berlin pictured above) may have been used as prayer intensifiers when honoring Isis and Horus. In this case, the image would serve as an offering as well as a magical battery.

All of these are interesting ideas and each makes sense in certain contexts. To me, it seems likely that the answer is “all of the above.” Egypt was an image-intensive society. The images were probably used in a wide variety of ways, some of which we may have deduced, some of which, as yet, we have not.

Offering to Isis: Fall EQ 2021

The festival starts this coming Friday. The weather forecast is perfection. The ritual cast is rehearsed. We are ready to go and can’t wait to see those of you who can make it. Still time to register!

The Pacific Northwest is ON for an Isis-themed Fall Equinox Festival (Sept. 24-26, 2021). This is not the same festival we were planning for 2020. That one was much more…involved…shall we say. This one is a gentle way of coming together once again as a community. So I’d like to share with you the write up for the festival, then I’ll repost something on Making Offering in the Egyptian way that will be related…

Frederick Arthur Bridgman, A Procession in Honor of Isis or An Egyptian Procession, 1902

Offering to Isis: A Fall Equinox Celebration of the Goddess and of Community

If you asked the ancient Egyptians, the act of Making Offering was one of the things that maintained Ma’et, that which is Right and True. Offering helped keep the world in balance. Making Offering is part of the great reciprocal flow between the Divine and the human. It is one of the most important ways we communicate with our Goddesses and Gods. It is hallowed by tradition. It is empowered by magic.

As we turn the wheel at this Fall Equinox, let us come together in rituals of offering. Under the Wings of the Great Goddess Isis, let us gather in a celebration of our reentry into and reconnection with Community. In the presence of Isis Myrionymos, Myriad-Named Isis, Goddess of the Ten Thousand Names, let us gather with open hearts and generous spirits to Make Offering.

As we human beings have always done—from the First Time, the Zep Tepi—we shall give gifts to Isis and we shall receive gifts from Her.

“My body being on earth, my heart being awakened, my magic being in my mouth, O Isis, I Make Offering unto You.”

We are living through extraordinary times. Many of us have gone through intense changes. There have been painful losses. And there have been surprising gains. Through Rites of Offering, we can give thanks, mourn losses, and ask for aid. We can find Divine connection and reawaken our hearts.

The Rites of Offering

Our rituals are inspired by the Daily Offering Rites worked in ancient Egyptian temples. We will come together four times, at the cross-quarters of the Holy Day and Sacred Night, to Make Offering to the Goddess in four of Her myriad names.

Yet, as a Community, we are many different people, on many different paths, who honor many different Deities. And so the Iset Weret— the Great Throne Altar of Isis—will welcome all our Divine Ones. If you wish, you are invited to bring an image or symbol of your own Divine One/s to add to the Great Altar that They may receive Offering as well.

We’ve missed each other!

Now, Let’s Celebrate

This festival is intended to give us plenty of open time so that we can be together…for feasting, drumming, dancing, and just relaxing. No formal workshops are planned.

Come join us in this Fall Equinox celebration as, under the Wings of Isis, we come together as a Community once more.

Now here’s a little something about Making Offering…

Nefertari makes offering to Isis
Nefertari makes offering to Isis

****************************************

Can Isis smell the flowers we place upon Her altar? Does She eat the delicacies we so carefully arrange upon Her offering mat? Does She drink the wine we pour into a beautiful cup and lift to the smiling lips of our sacred image?

Well, no.

And, yes.

Although I have had weird phenomena happen with offerings—for instance, once an entire two-ounce packet of incense (you DO know how much two ounces of powdered incense is, right?) was apparently incinerated without leaving a whiff of scent in the air of our tiny temple space—usually, the flowers wither naturally, the food dries to inedibility, and the wine evaporates.

So did the Goddess receive Her offerings or not?

An ancient Egyptian offering table
An ancient Egyptian offering table

For the ancient Egyptians, the sacred images of the Deities were sacred precisely because they were filled with some measure of the Deity Her- or Himself. Offerings to Isis were received by this bit of the Goddess residing in the image, and through it to Her greater Being.

The main spiritual mechanism for the transfer of an offering from offerent to Deity was the ka, or vital, life energy. All living beings—Deities, human beings, animals, fish, plants, stars, mountains, temples—have a ka. The kas of the Goddesses and Gods are extremely powerful. In one Egyptian creation myth, the Creator Atum embraces His children, the God Shu and the Goddess Tefnut, with His ka in order to protect Them from the primordial chaos of the Nun into which They were born—and, importantly, to transfer His ka to Them, giving Them life. Ka energy exists before a being comes to birth, is joined to that being at birth, lives with them throughout life, then travels to the Otherworld after death. The tomb became known as the Place of the Ka (among many other designations) and to die was to “go to one’s ka.”

King Hor’s ka statue; beautiful and haunting

The ka “doubles” the person physically, yet the ka is not essentially personal. It is held in common with all living things—including the Deities. The ka was the ancient Egyptian’s connection to a vast pool of vitality greater than the individual person.

But that’s not the end of it. One meets one’s ka after death where it can continue to protect.

Utterance 25 of the Pyramid Texts says that the dead king “goes with his ka.” Just as a list of Deities “go with Their kas,” so does the king:


“You yourself also go with your ka.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is behind you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is behind you.”

The ka statue of Amenemhet III
A ka statue of Amenemhet III

You might recognize this formulation. It is a common magical formula for invoking protection on all sides; similar to casting a circle or the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or part of the so-called Breastplate of St. Patrick (“Christ at my right. Christ at my left, etc.”)

Even though ancient Egyptians could experience the ka as separate from themselves, the ka also connected the person with the long line of humanity—for the ka was associated with the ancestors. In fact, the ancestors were thought to be the keepers of ka energy. Jeremy Nadler suggests that when people died, the Egyptians believed that they returned to the ka-group of ancestral energy to which each person naturally belonged. In other words, after death, the ka returns to its family.

This meant the living had several reasons for making offering to their ancestral dead. As we all do, they wanted to remember loved ones who had died. The offerings provided their ancestors’ kas with the nourishment required to keep the family spirit strong. But since the ancestors had ready access to the greater pool of beneficial ka energy and could bestow it on the living, people could also ask their ancestors to send them a blessing. A blessing of ka energy could nourish human beings, animals, and crops alike.

As usual in Egyptian society, the king was a special case. He could have multiple kas. He also had more intimate contact with the powerful ka energy of his royal ancestors than the average person had with their familial kas. The royal ka was especially connected with the power of the God Horus. By the time of the New Kingdom, the king’s ka was specifically identified as Harsiese, “Horus, son of Isis.”

Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian
Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian

In Egyptian, the word ka is related to numerous words that share its root. Egyptian words for thought, speech, copulation, vagina, testicles, to be pregnant and to impregnate, as well as the Egyptian word for magic (heka), all share the ka root. And all have some bearing on the meaning of ka. Ka is also specifically the word for “bull” and “food.” Connections such as these reveal mysteries. Ka is also the bull because it is a potent, fertile energy that contains the ancestral seeds that connect us with our families. Ka is also food for it is the energy that nourishes life, in both the physical and the spiritual realms. Ka is intimately connected with offering; the plural of ka, kau, was used to mean “food offerings.” Sometimes the ka hieroglyph replaces the images of food inscribed on offering tables.

Offering table piled high with kau
Offering table piled high with kau and other offerings

Kau, food offerings, provide life-energy for the individual ka. When the Egyptians offered food to their Deities or honored dead, they were offering the ka energy of the food to the ka of the Deities or ancestors. The ka inherent in the kau nourished the ka of the spirit being. Offering thus feeds the kas of the Deities and ancestors and the great pool of ka energy to which all enlivened things are connected. Simultaneously, the great pool of ka energy is the source of the energy found in the offerings by virtue of the ongoing, archetypal connection with it. By making and receiving offering, a great reciprocal power system was set up and could be eternally maintained. No energy was ever lost; it was continually transformed and re-activated by being offered and received, received and offered. Ka energy may be considered the food that fuels the engine of the living universe.

A modern offering table
A modern offering table

Since offerings are given and received ka to ka, it is no wonder that the Egyptians who made offering before the sacred images in the temples, did not expect the Deity to physically consume the food or drink offered. Instead, they expected the Deity’s ka, residing within the image, to take in the energy from the kas of the offerings. Ancient texts are explicit about this. A text from Abydos says that the pure, Divine offerings are given daily “to the kas” of the temple Deities. Sometimes the Deities are said to have been “united” with Their offerings. It is the ka of the offering and the ka of the Deity that unite. In another text from Abydos, the king asks the Deity to bring His magic, soul, power, and honor to the offering meal. Clearly, the king is not expecting a physical appearance, but a spiritual one.

It is the same with our offerings. We offer the ka of the kau to Isis and Her ka receives it. We can open our awareness to this aspect of offering by envisioning the ka, perhaps as Light, move from the offering to our sacred image of Isis (if we are using one) or to an image of Her we hold in our mind’s eye. In this way, we can know that Isis has indeed received what we offer to Her.

What does it mean to serve the Goddess Isis?

The pharaoh, as High Priest, makes offering to Isis
The pharaoh, as High Priest, makes offering to Isis

With a number of us gearing up to serve as ritualists in an upcoming Pacific Northwest Fall Equinox Festival, I’m re-running an older post on what it means to serve Isis as Her priest/ess. (Also, I’m scrambling to get the ritual written before our next Festival Crewe gathering, so bear with me.)

Of course, not all of our Festival ritualists will desire a relationship with Isis beyond the festival. Probably most won’t; they may already have important Divine connections in their lives. But for those who may, I offer these next few posts as starting thoughts for discovering a specific type of relationship with Her.

Oh, and another thing. As these are older posts, they used the gendered terms “priestess” and “priest.” As a community, we haven’t yet settled on a gender non-specific title for the intensely connected relationship with the Goddess that I will be talking about. So I’m going to try out a new one…and we’ll just see how that goes.

In ancient Egypt, the terms were very gendered; you really can’t get around that. One was either a Male Servant (hem) of the Goddess or one was a Female Servant (hemet) of the Goddess. So we’re not going to rely on ancient Egyptian terms, but English.

And now, here’s the older post with updates…

A priestess shakes the sistrum to please the Goddess
A Servant of the Goddess shakes the sistrum to please Isis

Of course, we can all have a deeply meaningful personal relationship with the Deity or Deities of our choice in whatever capacity we choose. But being a ministrant of the Deity is a particular kind of relationship; a particularly worthwhile one if you find yourself attracted to Isis.

If you already serve a specific Deity, you have likely already done some thinking on this topic. If not yet, you may decide, sometime in the future, that you’d like to have a deeper, more formal relationship with Isis as Her ministrant.

But what does it mean to serve Isis in this way? The easy answer is that it means different things to different people. The more difficult, and truer, answer is that we each have to figure out for ourselves what it means to us.

So how do we do that?

A good place to start is with what it has meant to serve the Goddess in this intensely connected manner. So over the next few posts, we’ll talk about some of the things we know about ancient Servants of Isis as well as some of the ways we can discover for ourselves what being Her ministrant may mean to us today.

Serving the Goddess

Service has been part of a ministrant’s job description as far back as we know. In one sense “one who serves” is the very definition of this role. This is true of our English word “minister.” To minister is to serve and, as you can see, it is the basis of the non-gender-specific word I’m trying out here. Generally, a ministrant’s service goes two ways: to the Divine and to the greater circle of worshippers.

A priest of Isis carries a sacred vessel in veiled hands

For people in mainstream religions, which have very prescribed ways to serve, things are—in at least this way—easier. For example, if you are a Catholic priest (you can’t be a Catholic priestess), you would have a very clear idea of what it meant in your particular religion to “serve God.” You would have gone through specific training meant to teach you precisely this.

Having precise ways to serve was true in ancient temples of Isis, too. Besides the upkeep and maintenance of the temple complex, there were particular ritual acts that had to be performed every day; for example, opening the shrine of the sacred image of Isis each morning and “putting Her to bed” each night. And of course, there were offerings to be made, festivals to be celebrated, and funerals to conduct. A ministrant of Isis might play the role of the Goddess in certain rituals. The Servants of Isis would learn the words to the sacred songs and invocations and how to perform them properly in the rites. Some served as sacred musicians.

A priestess carries a sacred vessel in veiled hands
A priestess carries a sacred vessel in veiled hands

But this type of formal structure of service is not available to us today. In a non-mainstream, more informal type of spirituality—such as those of the modern Pagan-Polytheist-Wiccan-Witch-insert-your-identifier-of-choice-here communities—things are less clear. It means that this path, if truly and deeply followed, is more difficult than those of mainstream religions because we have to blaze our own trail. It also requires a significant degree of perseverance and self-honesty to be able to make the important decisions that we must make when creating a personal path.

To take this alternative path, we need perseverance because we will not always know which branch of the path to take…or it will be dark…or it will even be boring. We need self-honesty because we often walk this path alone. And walking alone, with no one to consult, we can sometimes take a wrong turn. We can delude ourselves into not seeing things about ourselves or a situation that we should be seeing.

On the other hand, this path can be extremely rewarding precisely because it is difficult. Whereas in mainstream religions there tend to be established answers to the Great Questions, we must find our own answers—fresh and new every time. What happens after death? What does it mean to serve Isis? Why is there evil in the world? What is the nature of reality? What is the nature of humanity? What is the nature of the Divine?

All these are important questions that spiritual people have tried to answer from the beginning of time, and for which we still seek answers today. It is worth our time, as lovers of Isis, to seek our own answers to these questions.

Roman sacerdotes of Isis in sacred procession

Some will define service as “doing Goddess’ will on earth.” That’s a valuable insight; but how do you know if you’re doing Her will? Is it as simple as listening to your inner voice? Perhaps. Yet how do you know you’re hearing correctly and not coloring it with your own personal psychology or desires? I can tell you for a fact, it will ALWAYS be colored by your own personal psychology and desires. That’s not a disaster; it just brings us back to that self-honesty thing.

So how do you get around yourself? Discovering how to do that is part of the work of a ministrant of Isis. For some, it may be the key part. So I’m going to come back and talk about this some more when I come to the topic of personal spiritual development in a later post. For now, back to service.

A modern priestess of Isis enters the temple at Isis Oasis
A modern Isian enters the temple at Isis Oasis

What about the other kind of service—service to the greater circle of worshipers?

You’ll find a wide variety of expressions of service in this area. Some ministrants are always available to help those in their circle, whether with spiritual or personal problems. Some take the responsibility of organizing a circle and keeping it running as their service, but don’t expect to be called on the solve personal problems. Some represent their tradition to the greater Pagan community by organizing large festivals. Some organize or moderate blog communities. Some teach. Some don’t.

Again, it is a personal decision as to how you might decide to serve. Yet I do think that we are obligated to do some service of this type. By serving other people in these ways, we acknowledge the importance—the value—of other people. By serving people, we integrate this knowledge in a deep, intimate, and personal way. (I hear some of you moaning right now. People are SO difficult. Yes. Yes, they are. And complicated. You bet they are. But they are also very worth your time and care. So very, very worth it.)

Edwin Long, “A Votary of Isis”

The same is true of service to others who are not a part of your circle; humanity as a whole. Many religions—most religions, actually—place value on helping those in need. Feeding the hungry. Clothing the cold. Sheltering those without shelter. This sort of service is appropriate for the ministrant of Isis as well. Caring in this way makes us aware of other people and their needs and problems. It encourages our compassion and discourages our ego-centered-ness. At the very least a Servant of Isis should give money to charity—anonymously, if possible. Do other good deeds. Help people. Help the earth. And be aware of doing whatever it is you are doing in the spirit of service—with an open, compassionate heart. In this, we do our best to imitate the compassion of Isis Herself when She healed the child of the woman who refused Her shelter or withdrew the spear from Set even as He threatened Her own son, Horus.

Ultimately, serving others makes this world a better place one person at a time. Spread kindness and you will serve Isis.

Offering to Isis: Fall EQ 2021

Yes!

The Pacific Northwest is ON for an Isis-themed Fall Equinox Festival (Sept. 24-26, 2021). This is not the same festival we were planning for 2020. That one was much more…involved…shall we say. This one is a gentle way of coming together once again as a community. So I’d like to share with you the write up for the festival, then I’ll repost something on Making Offering in the Egyptian way that will be related…

Frederick Arthur Bridgman, A Procession in Honor of Isis or An Egyptian Procession, 1902

Offering to Isis: A Fall Equinox Celebration of the Goddess and of Community

If you asked the ancient Egyptians, the act of Making Offering was one of the things that maintained Ma’et, that which is Right and True. Offering helped keep the world in balance. Making Offering is part of the great reciprocal flow between the Divine and the human. It is one of the most important ways we communicate with our Goddesses and Gods. It is hallowed by tradition. It is empowered by magic.

As we turn the wheel at this Fall Equinox, let us come together in rituals of offering. Under the Wings of the Great Goddess Isis, let us gather in a celebration of our reentry into and reconnection with Community. In the presence of Isis Myrionymos, Myriad-Named Isis, Goddess of the Ten Thousand Names, let us gather with open hearts and generous spirits to Make Offering.

As we human beings have always done—from the First Time, the Zep Tepi—we shall give gifts to Isis and we shall receive gifts from Her.

“My body being on earth, my heart being awakened, my magic being in my mouth, O Isis, I Make Offering unto You.”

We are living through extraordinary times. Many of us have gone through intense changes. There have been painful losses. And there have been surprising gains. Through Rites of Offering, we can give thanks, mourn losses, and ask for aid. We can find Divine connection and reawaken our hearts.

The Rites of Offering

Our rituals are inspired by the Daily Offering Rites worked in ancient Egyptian temples. We will come together four times, at the cross-quarters of the Holy Day and Sacred Night, to Make Offering to the Goddess in four of Her myriad names.

Yet, as a Community, we are many different people, on many different paths, who honor many different Deities. And so the Iset Weret— the Great Throne Altar of Isis—will welcome all our Divine Ones. If you wish, you are invited to bring an image or symbol of your own Divine One/s to add to the Great Altar that They may receive Offering as well.

We’ve missed each other!

Now, Let’s Celebrate

This festival is intended to give us plenty of open time so that we can be together…for feasting, drumming, dancing, and just relaxing. No formal workshops are planned.

Come join us in this Fall Equinox celebration as, under the Wings of Isis, we come together as a Community once more.

Now here’s a little something about Making Offering…

Nefertari makes offering to Isis
Nefertari makes offering to Isis

****************************************

Can Isis smell the flowers we place upon Her altar? Does She eat the delicacies we so carefully arrange upon Her offering mat? Does She drink the wine we pour into a beautiful cup and lift to the smiling lips of our sacred image?

Well, no.

And, yes.

Although I have had weird phenomena happen with offerings—for instance, once an entire two-ounce packet of incense (you DO know how much two ounces of powdered incense is, right?) was apparently incinerated without leaving a whiff of scent in the air of our tiny temple space—usually, the flowers wither naturally, the food dries to inedibility, and the wine evaporates.

So did the Goddess receive Her offerings or not?

An ancient Egyptian offering table
An ancient Egyptian offering table

For the ancient Egyptians, the sacred images of the Deities were sacred precisely because they were filled with some measure of the Deity Her- or Himself. Offerings to Isis were received by this bit of the Goddess residing in the image, and through it to Her greater Being.

The main spiritual mechanism for the transfer of an offering from offerent to Deity was the ka, or vital, life energy. All living beings—Deities, human beings, animals, fish, plants, stars, mountains, temples—have a ka. The kas of the Goddesses and Gods are extremely powerful. In one Egyptian creation myth, the Creator Atum embraces His children, the God Shu and the Goddess Tefnut, with His ka in order to protect Them from the primordial chaos of the Nun into which They were born—and, importantly, to transfer His ka to Them, giving Them life. Ka energy exists before a being comes to birth, is joined to that being at birth, lives with them throughout life, then travels to the Otherworld after death. The tomb became known as the Place of the Ka (among many other designations) and to die was to “go to one’s ka.”

King Hor’s ka statue; beautiful and haunting

The ka “doubles” the person physically, yet the ka is not essentially personal. It is held in common with all living things—including the Deities. The ka was the ancient Egyptian’s connection to a vast pool of vitality greater than the individual person.

But that’s not the end of it. One meets one’s ka after death where it can continue to protect.

Utterance 25 of the Pyramid Texts says that the dead king “goes with his ka.” Just as a list of Deities “go with Their kas,” so does the king:


“You yourself also go with your ka.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is behind you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is behind you.”

The ka statue of Amenemhet III
A ka statue of Amenemhet III

You might recognize this formulation. It is a common magical formula for invoking protection on all sides; similar to casting a circle or the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or part of the so-called Breastplate of St. Patrick (“Christ at my right. Christ at my left, etc.”)

Even though ancient Egyptians could experience the ka as separate from themselves, the ka also connected the person with the long line of humanity—for the ka was associated with the ancestors. In fact, the ancestors were thought to be the keepers of ka energy. Jeremy Nadler suggests that when people died, the Egyptians believed that they returned to the ka-group of ancestral energy to which each person naturally belonged. In other words, after death, the ka returns to its family.

This meant the living had several reasons for making offering to their ancestral dead. As we all do, they wanted to remember loved ones who had died. The offerings provided their ancestors’ kas with the nourishment required to keep the family spirit strong. But since the ancestors had ready access to the greater pool of beneficial ka energy and could bestow it on the living, people could also ask their ancestors to send them a blessing. A blessing of ka energy could nourish human beings, animals, and crops alike.

As usual in Egyptian society, the king was a special case. He could have multiple kas. He also had more intimate contact with the powerful ka energy of his royal ancestors than the average person had with their familial kas. The royal ka was especially connected with the power of the God Horus. By the time of the New Kingdom, the king’s ka was specifically identified as Harsiese, “Horus, son of Isis.”

Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian
Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian

In Egyptian, the word ka is related to numerous words that share its root. Egyptian words for thought, speech, copulation, vagina, testicles, to be pregnant and to impregnate, as well as the Egyptian word for magic (heka), all share the ka root. And all have some bearing on the meaning of ka. Ka is also specifically the word for “bull” and “food.” Connections such as these reveal mysteries. Ka is also the bull because it is a potent, fertile energy that contains the ancestral seeds that connect us with our families. Ka is also food for it is the energy that nourishes life, in both the physical and the spiritual realms. Ka is intimately connected with offering; the plural of ka, kau, was used to mean “food offerings.” Sometimes the ka hieroglyph replaces the images of food inscribed on offering tables.

Offering table piled high with kau
Offering table piled high with kau and other offerings

Kau, food offerings, provide life-energy for the individual ka. When the Egyptians offered food to their Deities or honored dead, they were offering the ka energy of the food to the ka of the Deities or ancestors. The ka inherent in the kau nourished the ka of the spirit being. Offering thus feeds the kas of the Deities and ancestors and the great pool of ka energy to which all enlivened things are connected. Simultaneously, the great pool of ka energy is the source of the energy found in the offerings by virtue of the ongoing, archetypal connection with it. By making and receiving offering, a great reciprocal power system was set up and could be eternally maintained. No energy was ever lost; it was continually transformed and re-activated by being offered and received, received and offered. Ka energy may be considered the food that fuels the engine of the living universe.

A modern offering table
A modern offering table

Since offerings are given and received ka to ka, it is no wonder that the Egyptians who made offering before the sacred images in the temples, did not expect the Deity to physically consume the food or drink offered. Instead, they expected the Deity’s ka, residing within the image, to take in the energy from the kas of the offerings. Ancient texts are explicit about this. A text from Abydos says that the pure, Divine offerings are given daily “to the kas” of the temple Deities. Sometimes the Deities are said to have been “united” with Their offerings. It is the ka of the offering and the ka of the Deity that unite. In another text from Abydos, the king asks the Deity to bring His magic, soul, power, and honor to the offering meal. Clearly, the king is not expecting a physical appearance, but a spiritual one.

It is the same with our offerings. We offer the ka of the kau to Isis and Her ka receives it. We can open our awareness to this aspect of offering by envisioning the ka, perhaps as Light, move from the offering to our sacred image of Isis (if we are using one) or to an image of Her we hold in our mind’s eye. In this way, we can know that Isis has indeed received what we offer to Her.

Invocation Offerings to Isis

A king offering incense and pouring a libation
A king offering incense and pouring a libation

It seems we have always made offering to our Deities. Many have also honored their dead with offerings, as the ancient Egyptians did. Our ancestors offered the choicest cut of meat to the Great Hunter Who had helped them in their hunt. They gave the first handful of ripe berries to the Wild Mother Who had guided them to the mouth-watering cache. They shared their holy days and good fortune by offering feasts to their dead. They filled temples with sumptuous meals and beautiful scents for the Goddesses and Gods. They created art in enduring stone and precious metals and offered it to the Divine Houses.

From Christian tithing to Hindu puja to the stargazer lilies I grow and place upon Isis’ altar, we humans continue to make offering. Perhaps there is something of an inborn impulse to do so.

The Seattle Troll; that's a real VW Beetle in his left hand and a real bridge over his head
The Seattle Troll; that’s a real VW Beetle in his left hand and a real bridge over his head

I came across what I take as an example of that innate impulse one day when visiting the Seattle Troll. Large enough to hold a VW Beetle in one hand and staring out of a single, glassy eye, the Seattle Troll lives beneath the Aurora Bridge in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. He was originally a work of art funded by the city, but he has become something more. He has become a Work of Art and now receives offerings from passersby and neighborhood residents.

The day I visited—not a special day, just a weekday like any other—the Troll was supplied with an amazing array of offerings. There were fresh flowers, smoked almonds, jewelry, coins, jams, a bag of fresh cherries, a whole watermelon, a bright pink-orange slab of raw salmon, a whole Dungeness crab, a bar of soap, a pack of cigarettes, two coffee mugs, and two t-shirts. These offerings were fresh, too, the flowers and food as yet unwilted. At first, it looked like someone had temporarily left their picnic. But no. The votives were carefully arranged upon the enormous hands of the Troll. They were clearly presented, and no picnickers were to be found. The items were offerings and nothing less.

Two of the six Devas making continual offering in Hong Kong
Two of the six Devas making continual offering to the Buddha in Hong Kong

I doubt that any of those who offer to the Troll see him as a Deity—at most, he’s a quirky neighborhood spirit. Yet people leave offerings just the same.

Perhaps it’s because when we make offering we are seeking relationship. In the case of the Troll, perhaps we seek connection with the progressive spirit of the neighborhood. Maybe the Troll’s mere existence gave us a chuckle and we offer a gift of thanks, connecting with those who share our amusement or with the Troll’s artist-creators. Perhaps the offerings were intended to be discovered by someone in need, as Hekate’s Supper offerings were meant.

In a divine context, making offering can be a joyful sharing of blessings with the Deity or spirits with whom we have or seek a relationship. As an act of gift giving, offering is a universal way to create the sweet bonds of interconnection and ongoing reciprocity between giver and receiver. Offering encourages generosity in the giver. Some Tibetan Buddhists say that it is this growing generosity in ourselves that pleases the Deities, rather than the actual offerings. Offering can be a meditation, a prayer, a way to honor tradition, an act of devotion, a method of giving thanks, a path to greater openness of spirit.

A Mongolian shaman making offering
A Mongolian shaman making offering

Making offering was essential to the Egyptian relationship with the Divine while the relationship itself was essential to the proper functioning of the universe. The Egyptians knew that the universal order hinged upon the ongoing, interwoven relationship between Divine and human, natural and supernatural. If human beings failed to provide right worship to the Deities—a significant part of which was the act of making offering—the world would dissolve into chaos and the Goddesses and Gods would not have the energy required to maintain and renew the physical universe. The exchange of energy, the building of relationship made the act of offering an ongoing renewal of the world in partnership with the Deities.

In fact, offering was considered such a key part of the functioning of the universe that there are numerous representations of Deities making offering to each other. From Isis’ temple at Philae, we learn that the Goddess made libation offerings to Her beloved Osiris every 10 days. The temple calendar from Esna notes that She also made offering to Osiris (and to another Deity Whose name is lost) on the 10th day of the first month of the season of Inundation.

Roman girl making offering
Roman girl making offering

In ancient Egyptian temples, the offerings were often food and drink, flowers, incense, perfume, and even special items associated with the particular Deity: jewelry for Hathor, hawk feathers for Horus. Symbolic offerings were given too. The Eye of Horus, for example, could represent many different types of offerings and statuettes of Ma’at were given to represent the offerant’s dedication to upholding the Right and the Just and the True, which is the Being and Nature of the Goddess Ma’at.

But today, I’d like to talk about a particular type of offering, one that may be especially appropriate to Isis as Lady of Words of Power and, as She was called in Busiris, Djedet Weret, the Great Word. Egyptologists today call it an “invocation offering.” Egyptians called it peret kheru, the “going forth of the voice.”

We’ve talked many times about the power of the word in Egyptian practice. Isis conceives something in Her heart, then speaks it into existence. Words can establish, they can move magic, they can nourish and renew the spirit. A Hermetic text from the early centuries of the Common Era expressed the genuinely ancient Egyptian tradition that the quality of the speech and the very sound of the Egyptian words contain the energy of the objects of which they speak and are “sounds full of action.” This is precisely why words are powerful: they contain the energy of the objects they name, which is the energy of original Creation.

Hebrew priest making offering
Hebrew priest making offering

Because of their power, many of the most important words were preserved in Egypt’s great temple complexes in structures known as the Per Ankh, the House of Life. Primarily, the House of Life was a library containing information about all the things that sustained life and nourished the soul and spirit—from magic to medicine to religious mysteries.

The sacred words contained in the Houses of Life were sometimes understood as the food of the deceased as well as of the Deities, particularly of Osiris as the Divine prototype of all the dead. One of the funerary books instructs the deceased that his spiritual “hw-food” is to be found in the library and that his provisions “come into being” in the House of Life. A papyrus known as the Papyrus SALT says that the books in the House of Life at Abydos are “the emanations of Re” that keep Osiris alive. An official who claimed to have restored the House of Life at Abydos said that he “renewed the sustenance of Osiris.”

An offering formula from a tomb
An offering formula from a tomb

Because of the nourishing and sustaining power of the word, tomb inscriptions not only asked visitors to speak the name of the deceased, but might also ask them to recite an offering formula so that the offerings would be “renewed.” Egyptologists know this as the “appeal to the living.” The deceased assures the living that he or she need only speak the formula with the “breath of the mouth” and that doing so benefits the one who does it even more than the one who receives it.

By speaking the words and naming the offerings, the spiritual essence and magic of those offerings was re-activated and reconnected with its non-physical source so that it could once again feed the spirit of the deceased. It was as if the tomb visitor had given the offerings anew. Since both the human giver and the spirit receiver gained during this process, the act of making offering in this way reinforced and promoted the reciprocal blessings between the material and spiritual worlds.

Thus the peret kheru is an offering where no material object was given, but magically potent words were spoken. Because of the essential spiritual unity of an object, its representation, and the words that describe and name it, the Egyptians considered invocation offerings to be fully as effective and fully as valuable as physical offerings. Invocation offering is a genuine, traditional Egyptian form of offering.

Magical Images & Our Lady of Magic

A female image in ivory from the early predynastic period in Badari
A female image in hippopotamus ivory from the early predynastic period from Badari

As with so many things in Egyptology, there’s controversy surrounding the many female figurines that have been found throughout Egypt and spanning its long history.

These figurines take several forms. Some are standing females, usually nude with sexual characteristics emphasized (eyes, breasts, vulva). Some are abstracted into what have been called “paddle dolls”; more on them shortly. Some show a woman lying on a bed, often with a baby or child beside her. Others show a woman nursing a child.

The old gentlemen of early Egyptology initially guessed that the nude females and paddle dolls, a number of them found in tombs, were “spirit concubines” for deceased Egyptian men. (However, the fact that they have been found in the tombs of women and children, too, throws a significant monkey wrench into that interpretation.)

There’s also the more modern controversy about whether ancient female figurines should be interpreted as images of Goddesses or even as representations of an all-encompassing Mother Goddess. In opposition are those who regard the figures as devoid of divinity altogether and more likely to have been toys, ancestor figures, tools for sex instruction, or the ever-popular post mortum concubines.

A Second Intermediate Period image
A Second Intermediate Period image

While the idea of a singular worldwide Goddess cult goes farther than strict interpretation of the evidence can take us (and, in fact, that is not what most proponents of the Goddess interpretation claim), the virulence of the opposition makes me question its objectivity as well. The truth is, we just don’t know. We have no ancient texts explaining these figures for us. Yet, at the very least, the ubiquity of the female figurines as well as their greater numbers in comparison to extant male figurines indicates a keen interest in the feminine by our ancestors.

Female figurines in Egypt

These images are also commonly interpreted as general “fertility symbols.” This makes sense due to the emphasized sexual characteristics of many figurines and the connection with the child in others, as well as the fact that a number of them seem to have been given as votive offerings to the Great Goddess Hathor, one of Whose concerns is fertility. (It should be noted that Hathor also received what one Egyptologist described as “baskets full” of clay phalluses.) Another cache of these images that has received study come from the temple precinct of the Great Mother Mut. Of the small handful of votive images that include inscriptions, all are requests for children. In addition to temples and tombs, these figures have also been found in ancient homes and in domestic shrine settings.

19th dynasty image of a woman and child on a bed
19th dynasty image of a woman and child on a bed

Many modern Egyptologists have come to the consensus that the female figurines are symbols of fertility in its the broadest sense, which includes the ideas of general health and well-being, rebirth and regeneration—in addition to concerns with human reproduction.

There are some other interesting ideas as well. One that I hadn’t come across before is the idea that the paddle dolls are related to a specific type of royal and sacred musicians and dancers.

Paddle dolls

Paddle dolls are flat images with truncated arms, no legs, an emphasized vulva, decorative painting on the body, big hair—and sometimes no head, just an abundance of beaded hair. (See more on the magical importance of Isis’ hair here.) They were first called paddle dolls because of the flat, paddle-like body shape and dolls because they were thought to be toys; some even looked to the archeologists like they had been played with by a child. The largest number of paddle dolls have been excavated from the cemeteries around Thebes in Egypt.

One of the big-haired paddle dolls with emphasized vulva
One of the big-haired paddle dolls with emphasized vulva

In a paper on the subject, Ellen F. Morris follows a variety of very interesting lines of evidence to conclude that the paddle dolls were meant to be representations of the khener-women. Members of the khener were once thought to be part of the pharaoh’s harim, but now understood to have been skilled and respected musicians and dancers. Married women and men could also be part of a khener. The khener could be connected to the royal household, to temples of the Deities, and to mortuary temples. When associated with the temples, it seems reasonable to think of them as priest/esses of music and dance.

The story of the birth of the three kings told in the Westcar Papyrus indicates that the women of the khener might also serve as midwives. In this tale, Isis, Nephthys, Heqet, Meshkhenet, and Khumn are specifically said to be disguised as a khener when They deliver the three children of Reddjedet. By the time of the New Kingdom, we know that a khener was part of the worship of Isis.

On several of the paddle dolls and on a number of examples of the female figurines, cross-shaped marks were found on the upper body. Some researchers have correlated these cross marks to similar cross marks seen on the bodies of partially nude female mourners in some New Kingdom tomb paintings. In some of these, two of the women are specifically identified as Isis and Nephthys. Some scholars have theorized that the partial nudity may refer to Isis’ use of Her arousing sexuality to help bring Osiris back to life. This strengthens the argument that at least some of the female figurines were tools of resurrection, imbued with the arousing power of Isis. This ability of the nude or partially nude figures to induce (male, heterosexual) arousal may hold a key to the reason why they may be considered fertility figures. For potency—in life or after life—the male must be aroused and the female must arouse him.

A particularly beautiful 12th dynasty image from Thebes
A particularly beautiful 12th dynasty image from Thebes

Magical images

There are other possible uses for these figurines as well. Some researchers have suggested that they were purposely generic so that they could be assigned magical roles as need be. Healing seems to have been a common use. We have a ritual text that instructs the sufferer to recite a particular spell “over a woman’s statue of clay.” The spell, in the Leiden Papyrus (3rd century CE), is to cure a bellyache. Once the spell is spoken, the papyrus says that “the affliction will be sent down from him into the Isis-statue until he is healed.”

We also find images of Isis used in relation to healing from snakebite. A spell in the Turin Papyrus (First Intermediate Period) instructs the ritualist to use “this clay of Isis that has come forth from under the armpit of Selket” to ward off a snake. In this case the spellworker is to enclose a knife and a particular herb within the clay. We can’t be completely sure whether the “clay of Isis” was in the form of Isis or used to form an image of the Goddess. Some scholars think so and that the spell in full should read “this clay figure of Isis.”

A Ptolemaic beeswax image of one of the sons or Horus
A Ptolemaic beeswax image of one of the sons or Horus

In addition to clay, magic workers also used beeswax to form their magical images. Figurines made of beeswax are known from the magical papyri and, in specific relation to Isis, from Diodorus Siculus (1.21, 5-6). He says that the Goddess used wax to create multiple figures of Osiris, which She then gave into the keeping of priests throughout Egypt so that Osiris could be buried in locations throughout the land and thus to be widely honored.

A number of the female figurines we’ve found are broken. Originally this was thought to have been accidental. Now scholars are more inclined to think the state is purposeful. Why? Well, if they were being used in healing spells like the one in which the bellyache “went down into” the Isis statue, then to keep the bellyache from returning, it would be reasonable to break the image, permanently obliterating the bellyache with it. Modern magic workers often do the same sort of thing. Once the magic is accomplished, the talisman is dismantled, de-charged, or destroyed.

One of the books I’ve been reading on this conjectures that, given Her role in healing and protection, many of the generic female images may have been used specifically as Isis figures. The image “became” Isis with the recitation of the spell. The crude fashioning of many of the images is to be explained by the fact that, in many cases, they were intended to be disposable. Once broken and disposed, the images were no longer Isis, but simply a container for the affliction.

A copper image from the Middle Kingdom now in Berlin; an inscriptions identifies it as Isis nursing Horus
A copper image from the Middle Kingdom now in Berlin; an inscription identifies it as Isis nursing Horus

Images of the nursing woman

The female figure of a woman nursing an infant is easily seen as Isis nursing Horus. Stephanie Budin argues, however, that we should not understand this specifically as Isis and Horus until the late New Kingdom. Before that time, the image reflected a variety of Divine Wet Nurses nourishing the king.

She also discusses the fascinating idea that images such as the nursing woman—as well as the other female figurines we have been discussing—might have been used to intensify magic and prayers. She refers to them as “potency figures.” (This idea is also discussed by Elizabeth Waraksa, who has studied these images from the Mut temple.) In other words, the images were a kind of magical battery that empowered the ritual. I like this idea very much.

It’s also excellent magical practice. Modern magicians would call it adding “correspondences” to the rite. Colors, stones, herbs, and symbols that relate to the ritual purpose can be used to help the magic worker “tune in” to the divine powers that can assist in accomplishing the magic of the rite. In the case of the nursing woman images, our ancient Egyptian might be tuning in to the nurturing or protective powers of Isis.

Budin also suggests that, alternatively, the nursing-woman images (for example, the one now in Berlin pictured above) may have been used as prayer intensifiers when honoring Isis and Horus. In this case, the image would serve as an offering as well as a magical battery.

All of these are interesting ideas and each makes sense in certain contexts. To me, it seems likely that the answer is “all of the above.” Egypt was an image-intensive society. The images were probably used in a wide variety of ways, some of which we may have deduced, some of which, as yet, we have not.

Offering to Isis

Nefertari makes offering to Isis
Nefertari makes offering to Isis

Can Isis smell the flowers we place upon Her altar? Does She eat the delicacies we so carefully arrange upon Her offering mat? Does She drink the wine we pour into a beautiful cup and lift to the smiling lips of our sacred image?

Well, no.

And, yes.

Although I have had weird phenomena happen with offerings—for instance, once an entire two-ounce packet of incense (you DO know how much two ounces of powdered incense is, right?) was apparently incinerated without leaving a whiff of scent in the air of our tiny temple space—usually, the flowers wither naturally, the food dries to inedibility, and the wine evaporates.

So did the Goddess receive Her offerings or not?

An ancient Egyptian offering table
An ancient Egyptian offering table

For the ancient Egyptians, the sacred images of the Deities were sacred precisely because they were filled with some measure of the Deity Her- or Himself. Offerings to Isis were received by this bit of the Goddess residing in the image, and through it to Her greater Being.

The main spiritual mechanism for the transfer of an offering from offerent to Deity was the ka, or vital, life energy. All living beings—Deities, human beings, animals, fish, plants, stars, mountains, temples—have a ka. The kas of the Goddesses and Gods are extremely powerful. In one Egyptian creation myth, the Creator Atum embraces His children, the God Shu and the Goddess Tefnut, with His ka in order to protect Them from the primordial chaos of the Nun into which They were born—and, importantly, to transfer His ka to Them, giving Them life. Ka energy exists before a being comes to birth, is joined to that being at birth, lives with her or him throughout life, then travels to the Otherworld after death. The tomb became known as the Place of the Ka (among many other designations) and to die was to “go to one’s ka.”

King Hor’s ka statue; beautiful and haunting

The ka “doubles” the person physically, yet the ka is not essentially personal. It is held in common with all living things—including the Deities. The ka was the ancient Egyptian’s connection to a vast pool of vitality greater than the individual person.

But that’s not the end of it. One meets one’s ka after death where it can continue to protect.

Utterance 25 of the Pyramid Texts says that the dead king “goes with his ka.” Just as a list of Deities “go with Their kas,” so does the king:


“You yourself also go with your Ka.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is behind you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is behind you.”

You might recognize this formulation. It is a common magical formula for invoking protection on all sides; similar to casting a circle or the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or part of the so-called Breastplate of St. Patrick (“Christ at my right. Christ at my left, etc.”)

Even though ancient Egyptians could experience the ka as separate from themselves, the ka also connected the person with the long line of humanity—for the ka was associated with the ancestors. In fact, the ancestors were thought to be the keepers of ka energy. Jeremy Nadler suggests that when people died, the Egyptians believed that they returned to the ka-group of ancestral energy to which each person naturally belonged. In other words, after death, the ka returns to its family.

The ka statue of Amenemhet III
A ka statue of Amenemhet III

This meant the living had several reasons for making offering to their ancestral dead. As we all do, they wanted to remember loved ones who had died. The offerings provided their ancestor’s kas with the nourishment required to keep the family spirit strong. But since the ancestors had ready access to the greater pool of beneficial ka energy and could bestow it on the living, people could also ask their ancestors to send them a blessing. A blessing of ka energy could nourish human beings, animals, and crops alike.

As usual in Egyptian society, the king was a special case. He could have multiple kas. He also had more intimate contact with the powerful ka energy of his royal ancestors than the average person had with their familial kas. The royal ka was especially connected with the power of the God Horus. By the time of the New Kingdom, the king’s ka was specifically identified as Harsiese, “Horus, son of Isis.”

In Egyptian, the word ka is related to numerous words that share its root. Egyptian words for thought, speech, copulation, vagina, testicles, to be pregnant and to impregnate, as well as the Egyptian word for magic (heka), all share the ka root. And all have some bearing on the meaning of ka. Ka is also specifically the word for “bull” and “food.” Connections such as these reveal mysteries. Ka is also the bull because it is a potent, fertile energy that contains the ancestral seeds that connect us with our families. Ka is also food for it is the energy that nourishes life, in both the physical and the spiritual realms. Ka is intimately connected with offering; the plural of ka, kau, was used to mean “food offerings.” Sometimes the ka hieroglyph replaces the images of food inscribed on offering tables.

Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian
Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian

Kau, food offerings, provide life-energy for the individual ka. When the Egyptians offered food to their Deities or honored dead, they were offering the ka energy of the food to the ka of the Deities or ancestors. The ka inherent in the kau nourished the ka of the spirit being. Offering thus feeds the kas of the Deities and ancestors and the great pool of ka energy to which all enlivened things are connected. Simultaneously, the great pool of ka energy is the source of the energy found in the offerings by virtue of the ongoing, archetypal connection with it. By making and receiving offering, a great reciprocal power system was set up and could be eternally maintained. No energy was ever lost; it was continually transformed and re-activated by being offered and received, received and offered. Ka energy may be considered the food that fuels the engine of the living universe.

Offering table piled high with kau
Offering table piled high with kau and other offerings

Since offerings are given and received ka to ka, it is no wonder that the Egyptians who made offering before the sacred images in the temples, did not expect the Deity to physically consume the food or drink offered. Instead, they expected the Deity’s ka, residing within the image, to take in the energy from the kas of the offerings. Ancient texts are explicit about this. A text from Abydos says that the pure, Divine offerings are given daily “to the kas” of the temple Deities. Sometimes the Deities are said to have been “united” with Their offerings. It is the ka of the offering and the ka of the Deity that unite. In another text from Abydos, the king asks the Deity to bring His magic, soul, power, and honor to the offering meal. Clearly, the king is not expecting a physical appearance, but a spiritual one.

It is the same with our offerings. We offer the ka of the kau to Isis and Her ka receives it. We can open our awareness to this aspect of offering by envisioning the ka, perhaps as Light, move from the offering to our sacred image of Isis (if we are using one) or to an image of Her we hold in our mind’s eye. In this way, we can know that Isis has indeed received what we offer to Her.

A modern offering table

A modern offering table

Perfumes for Isis

At this present moment, our home is filled with flowers. Yes, I know. It’s February. That’s why it’s filled with flowers. And since oriental lilies are some of our favorites, right now, I’m smelling the sweet-dark scent of those wonderful lilies throughout the living room.

And all this leads me to think of the perfumes of ancient Egypt and, of course, the perfumes of Isis particularly. For the Goddesses and Gods of Egypt were always associated with scent. Beautiful scents have always been connected with the Divine, but in Egypt particularly, you knew that a Deity had arrived when you smelled Her or His perfume in the temple air.

Egyptian women making perfume

The Egyptians apparently blended scents appropriate for their Deities; for instance, there is a record of an unguent called “Aroma of Horus.” Surely, there was an “Aroma of Isis,” too, but alas, we have no record of it to date. Today’s magical perfumers, on the other hand, almost always have a scent for Her. Isis’ association with scent remained part of Her manifestation even after Her worship spread beyond Egypt. In Apuleius’ account of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, his protagonist sees Isis in a vision and remarks that She breathed forth the “blessed fragrance of Arabia.”

My personal favorite scent for Isis is stargazer lily. With its deep pink, engorged-looking blossoms, stargazers are downright sexual in their showiness. Of course that is exactly what any flower is; sexual. As you may know, flowers are the sex organs of plants, which they display for all the world to see, marvel at, and enjoy. No wonder we have always given flowers as a love gift.

The stargazer lily; thus do we offer unto Isis that which is Hers

I like the blatant, vulva-pink sexual display of the stargazer to be sure. And the flower’s name reminds me of Isis’ own starry connections. But the main reason I associate them with Isis, and give them in offering to Her, is the scent. The stargazer’s soft, sweet perfume is deepened with a dark, funky musk that is almost animal-like in its pungency. The stargazer is my “jitterbug perfume.” (If you have not read Tom Robbin’s Jitterbug Perfume, oh please do!) The mixture of sweet and strange all wrapped up in an audacious package seems to me a perfect floral resumé for Isis. She offers us the sweet love of a mother one moment, then freaks us out completely with some weirdly magical happening the next. Like the flower, She is not shy; never shy. She will always tell you what you need to hear even when you don’t particularly want to hear it. Thus do I offer unto Isis that which is Hers: the beautiful stargazer lily.

The ancient Egyptians had no stargazers, alas. But they did associate a variety of other scents with Isis as well as with other Deities.

Expeditions to Punt for cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, and other precious resins, were common throughout Egyptian history. The huge gardens attached to the temple complexes also supplied vast quantities of herbs and flowers for the creation of the gallons of scent, pounds of incense, and thousands of bouquets offered in Egyptian temples. Many temples, such as those at Edfu and Denderah, even had special laboratories for making perfume and incense. Perfume was, after all, one of Egypt’s most lucrative exports.

Egyptian women enjoying perfume

Cleopatra VII, the queen who styled herself “the New Isis,” was reputed to use a different perfume for every part of her body and was credited with writing a book on the subject. But Cleo’s perfumes would not have been the clear, alcohol-based liquids we think of as perfume today. Egyptian perfumes were oil and fat-based; similar to our solid perfumes that liquefy as they are rubbed into the skin. A number of Egyptian perfumes were quite famous, the name brands of their day.

Lily was the dominant scent in Susinon, a perfume that seems to have been made exclusively by women. Perhaps this was because the lily was connected with female sensuality and spirituality and lily oil was a common treatment for “female complaints.” Lotus oil, from the sacred blue lotus (actually a blue water lily), was a favorite essential oil and associated with rebirth. It was the fragrance most favored by Egyptian priestesses. Other Egyptian perfumes include Magaleion, a complicated, difficult-to-make scent; Mendesian, known simply as “The Egyptian,” which was a spicy, resinous perfume; Metopion, a mixture of resins, herbs, sweet wine, and honey; and Sampsuchum, a marjoram-based scent sweetened with herbs and nasturtium flowers.

And then there was Kyphi, both an incense and perfume.

Recipes for Kyphi perfume are engraved on the walls of the temple of Isis’ son, Horus, at Edfu and at Philae, Isis’ own great temple in Upper Egypt. Kyphi was used especially to welcome the Deities to Their temples. Wine-based, Kyphi also includes sweet flag, rushes, cinnamon, juniper, raisins, myrrh, frankincense, cardamom, and gum mastic. In his essay “On Isis and Osiris,” Plutarch reports 16 ingredients and says that Kyphi calms, soothes, and can lull to sleep. It is also said to sharpen the intuition and promote dreams.

A priestess friend and I once made a ridiculously huge batch of Kyphi from Plutarch’s recipe, bits of which I am still burning to this day. It has a warm smell; like spicy raisin cookies. In fact, you could eat it without harm—and I believe the Egyptians did, medicinally. Luckily for me, it seems to get better with age.

What scents do you associate with Isis? There are no wrong answers. This is a personal thing. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

A beautiful piece of stargazer lily art